Are Autistics whom are Pro-Abortion hypocrits?

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Don't dis Peter Singer so quickly:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=onsIdBanynY

@LKL

I don't believe anyone mentioned fetal pain yet. As to Peter Singer. His work on poverty is commendable, his work on meta-ethics is dreadful. His views on abortion run counter to several of your own. He does not believe that those who favor abortion can establish viability or lack of pain sense as the basis for their case. Take his (underlined for clarification) syllogism:

It is wrong to kill an innocent human being.
A human foetus is an innocent human being.
Therefore it is wrong to kill a human foetus.

Singer does not dispute the second premise and he thinks to do so is not really going to be able to solve the issue. Rather Singer disputes the first; he believes that person-hood should be the objective criteria. He also agrees that newborns are not fully persons so to kill one is not the same as to kill an adult. I would hope that you agree that his position on this matter is truly shocking?

Last edited by 91 on 06 Mar 2011, 7:28 am, edited 1 time in total.

False equivocation if I've ever heard one.

I say Peter should wade into the Pond and not waste time asking questions.

ruveyn

@91: without a brain to comprehend it, any pain a zef feels is less important than the pain a cow feels at the slaughterhouse. Without a functioning cortex, it is merely adversive stimulus.

As far as Singer: yes, I do disagree with him vehemently on some issues - but I don't think that he's a monster. I think that he opens useful discussions by his theorizing, and the more i read what he actually says (as oppsed to what makes headlines), the more I agree with him.

He is not a Monster. He is a sanctimonious Do-Gooder.

ruveyn

I'd like to introduce him to logical fallacies

To me, an embryo is alive when it's capable of sustaining life on its own. Before someone starts twisting my words, I'm not saying anyone who needs medical care or depends on others for some other reason should be left for dead. If you must extrapolate, it's like keeping a braindead (not (necessarily (temporarily)) comatose) person on life support when the ability to regenerate brain tissue is decades, most likely centuries away (not to mention it might, at least initially, involve stem cells). It's not like refusing treatment from a preemie who has a realistic chance of surviving.

Based on the title, this thread has always been about termination in general, but apparently it should've been more about selective termination/eugenics... I suspect that I'm on the spectrum because of my mother's hypothyroidism. There is strong evidence to suggest that maternal hypothyroidism "can lead to cognitive and developmental disabilities in the baby". Mom was diagnosed when I was in my teens and grandma about five years ago, but they've had symptoms for as long as I can remember, so it definitely started earlier. I have test results to prove that I was hypo 7 years before I got the thyroid meds.

So if you look at this strictly from my point of view, I may be this way only because of medical malpractice. There's no moral ambiguity in treating a disease like hypothyroidism, no matter what the consequence is.

Actually, theism doesn't justify inalienable rights though, as most historic theisms have justified slavery explicitly in their major theological doctrines. So to say that inalienable rights exist under theism is kind of ridiculous.

Secondly, I don't think our society actually needs a presumption of natural rights to succeed. I would rather have a presumption of liberty, as "natural rights" seem rather unclear to me, especially given that so many violations of a clear-cut vision of rights exist in practice, and especially given that it is not entirely clear what is a violation of rights. It's very apparent that the notions of rights that most people refer back to are poorly grounded, and often have fatal problems to them, and this is even found in JWC's thread in my view.

Finally, no matter how much moral bluster you have against Singer, his framework does put a high value on personhood, making it more similar to my views. After all, if we found a race of entities, or even created a race of entities, that were not homo sapien, but that were capable of feeling pain, of reasoning through problems, capable of communication, even capable of great acts of creativity, would it really follow that given that these aren't humans, we can torture and kill them as we please? I don't think so, and this kind of notion really does agree with Singer. Especially since I am in favor of a world where these changes would occur, as I am in favor of modifying human genomes and creating artificial intelligences if we are capable of doing so productively.


No, you're committing the fallacy of not actually reading or engaging what I say and even forgetting the particular discussion we have when I say it.

First, that particular branch of the discussion wasn't on killing the unborn, it was on the value of human life.

Second, the existence of a trade-off that we do take, and do feel justified in taking, does entail that the trade-off is regarded as a valid trade-off, and if it is a valid trade-off it is not unjustified to extrapolate from this and base opinions off of it. The issue isn't "people may die", but rather "people may die, even though we could have had a world where less deaths would be due to that reason". We don't aim for minimum risk, but rather instead, we aim for financially justifiable levels of risk, and this is usually based upon the perceived value of a human life, and this perceived value of a human life is extrapolated from calculations of risk.

The fact of the matter is that we already calculate the value of a life in economic terms. We have to. If you want to ignore the calculations that already exist necessitated by human practices, then go put your head in the sand, but if we make a practice where we do calculate the value of a life as a trade-off for economic goods, you cannot say that my statement "Some deaths will always be needed to achieve goals. Some losses of life have to be accepted." is unreasonable if it is just a reflection of the currently and historically existing realities.

I don't find it shocking. His position is very similar to mine, I just consider personhood to be a requirement for being an innocent human being. In my view, one cannot be considered innocent without being a person, and one cannot be considered a human being without being considered a person. That difference is pretty cosmetic though in my view.

Nirvana Fallacy. Showing that theism can make a mess out of justifying objective moral values says nothing about its ability to do so correctly.



If people are presumed to have liberty then liberty is a natural right. You are making a distinction without a difference in an attempt to move past the rights you do not think people should have; which is kind of strange since you are defending a position that favors the rights of the mother. Surely a rights based view would be the basis of the pro-choice position?



This would be the very definition of an ‘ought from is’ fallacy. What you are saying has no basis on the moral validity of the practices under discussion.



The problem with making this sort of a case from a utilitarian perspective is that it depends on the subjective criteria that one chooses to regard as important. One could make an equally valid argument in which human ‘potential’ was the supposedly ‘objective’ basis for deciding the value of life. I am not going to put forward such a view as my own, however under this view, the unborn would have more potential than many of the parents attempting to abort their child. Both arguments would be equally valid under utilitarianism and both would result in opposite outcomes and rights for the child in question. What is really being erected by Singer is a subjective argument attempting to impose itself as an objective one. This is not to say that some sort of utilitarian view could not be right; just that it the view put forward by Singer involves the promotion of some criteria at the direct expense of other, equally valid criteria.
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So let me get your position straight. You’re in favor of an unlimited right to terminate a child up to and including after birth and you do not think your moral compass might be off? Also, I find it interesting that someone who does not believe in free will is defending the pro-choice position. Further you have moved quite a ways off topic, you did not even mention abortion in your last post.

Not really, no. My point is that any theism that is accepted is going to be a theism that has doctrinally supported slavery.


I didn't say "liberty is a natural right". I didn't say "people are presumed to have liberty". Even further, liberty is not actually a "right" so much as a proclivity in that one can have more or less liberty, but rights are pretty binary, either you have a right to do something or you do not.

Presumption of liberty would be best interpreted as saying that the presumption is that liberty is to be maintained. Frankly, you have tried to reinterpret my views into your understanding of reality, and I don't fit into those frameworks pretty easily, and if you noticed my latter reasoning against natural rights, the idea that I was likely not going the direction you sought.

In any case, a pro-choice view can be maintained using any standpoint, as the issue isn't rights but legality. One could be a pro-choice utilitarian.


" the existence of a trade-off that we do take, and do feel justified in taking, does entail that the trade-off is regarded as a valid trade-off"

Is not the is-ought fallacy. The is-ought fallacy is merely deriving what ought to be done from what is done, but the issue is that in making that claim, I am in part referring to what is regarded as acceptable. Even further, any view of morality that makes a needed practice for our everyday survival into something immoral has already reduced itself into an absurd claim in most situations, thus making my claim "we have to" reasonable because we can hold it implicit that what we need to do in order to reasonably survive is morally acceptable. (Note: To go further, not accepting this premise leads us to absurdities.)

If you want me to break everything down into syllogisms so that way you don't get lost, I can try to do this, but really, I think you are being silly.


I didn't actually make a utilitarian case. He made his case against abortion on personhood. Saying that I consider this reasonable and that his position on this matter is very similar to mine does not mean that I am a utilitarian. It means that I think that personhood is a valid line. You really really really need to learn to get better at reading, as you continually make gross errors in assessing what is said.

That being said, I am arguing that a fetus is not a person, it is in some sense "owned" by the woman(nobody else can own it, it is not reasonable to consider it a free resource, and as such, there is no wrong in her decision to dispose of it.


Actually, no. I never actually said that. In our past discussion on this, I set another metric. What I said to you, and what you have apparently a problem reading is that I said this:
"I am more sympathetic to the idea that newborns are not actually persons than the idea that fetuses are. "

All this means is that between regarding newborns as not persons and zefs as persons, I would sooner regard newborns as not persons, as it is more plausible than the other way around.

I haven't "moved off-topic" so much as followed some of the directions of the conversation away from abortion. In any case, my discussion on Peter Singer is still in some form or fashion on-topic as it was relating to the "personhood as morally important" framework.

Personified topic

the only point at which AG and I disagree (if I am reading him right) is that i do consider a newborn living, breathing human infant a person. If there are sufficent vital signs after exiting from the uterus, and after the cord is cut every reasonable attempt should be made to maintain that life, especially in the event of distress.

Having said this, I still maintain that the unborn zef is not a person, though prenatal care should be sought if the woman wishes to maintain a pregnancy in good health which will hopefully result in a viable person at the time of birth of the infant.

As far as I am concerned, human personhood is not attainted until there is viable birth. To me, this is the most reasonable compromise in the debate. No hypocrisy here.

Liberty is a right. (Fifth Amendment, US Bill of Rights; Article 3 UDHR, Article 6, EU Charter of Human Rights, Article 2 Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen). Your definition of rights is also off; there are aspirational rights; in that they are incomplete.



Like I said... this is ought from is. The fact that you see something as justified trade-off economically does not mean it is morally justified.



Wow. I am about ready to start putting AG quotes in anti-abortion flyers. So its ok, in your view for a woman to have a late-term abortion and sell the parts? I wonder what could go wrong with that idea.



And you don't see a problem with this?



A child can be born at increasingly early points during development and have a reasonable chance at survival. On this view two children that are at equal developmental stages can be delivered. Say for example one is and one is not, on your view the one that is not delivered is not a person even though there is nothing physically different between the two children biologically. This is not in my view a good enough definition.

Ok? Appeal to authority?

Actually, my problem is that I don't think that there is a perfect liberty to aspire to, so talking about a right when its actualization I think would lead to large-scale disruption or incoherence is just silly to me. I also don't really put any emphasis on the notion of an "aspirational right". The idea just sounds a bit ridiculous, and I think that "rights-language" is way way way overblown.


Ok.... well, if basic coherence and functioning society is in contradiction with what is moral, then I don't want to be right. In any case, I think you have either shown yourself incapable of either understanding, or of being reasonable to talk to.


It depends on how late. I have generally been ok with a 3rd trimester limitation, as neural development has gotten relatively far by that point.

However, I don't care what people do with aborted fetuses. I've joked in the past about McDonalds using them as a source of meat.


No, I do not. This position was also somewhat put forward by PZ Myers:

"Nope, birth is also arbitrary, and it has not been even a cultural universal that newborns are regarded as fully human.

I've had a few. They weren't."

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2010 ... nt-2966744

I don't think he is promoting euthanizing newborns, but his position is that, and as a biologist, he probably understands the issue just on an intuitive level better than you do. He's had to deal with more icky biological things than both of us combined, so he isn't going to be caught up in your silly moral outrages.

Actually, I just don't have a strong opinion about it being a person at/after birth. It isn't that I consider it necessarily not a person. I mostly put forward that I think it is more correct to think that newborns aren't persons than that zefs are simply to clarify that I don't consider the "life at conception/life in early pregnancy" idea reasonable, and that I think that this much further position is actually more reasonable.

I am fine with a line at the third trimester, and not because I am taking a stand "It is a person at that time", but really more because I think it is reasonable to take that stand, and that it does not impact most abortions anyway.

@AG

You have answered my questions. Though we do not agree; I am prepared to leave things as they are. Your views really are pretty awful on this subject and I don't think I am likely to change them. I do hope that people who are pro-choice read your comments.

There are times when I wish someone who argues against me was on my side.... This is not one of those times.