After-birth abortion: why should the baby live?

[Mr. Nice Guy]

But it will...thats my point. You are denying that child their human right to develop that sense of self.

But again, i digress. China has it right. Ill leave it at that.

You make a great point because any argument in favor of abortion relies on subjective arguments that are arbitrarily defined at best.

Future aims?
Sense of self?
Pain sensory?
Etc, etc

All exist on an spectrum, and anytime you draw a line it will be arbitrarily done and highly prone to interpretation and error. Logic would dictate avoiding the subjective and not drawing the line at all.

Is a person anymore "ready to drink" at 20 years and 364 days old than they are at 21 years old? That is where drawing lines on a social issues that exists on a spectrum leaves you.

::

Arguing for post-birth abortions is simply moving the line further up the same spectrum on which it already exists.

Remove the line IMO.

 

[Fucky McFuckerson]

It will develop, if nothing goes wrong; but so will the embryos we abort right now.

And just to add context to the argument, I am against abortion. The problem is, too many people refuse to responsibility for their own actions in the first place, which makes abortion a great scapegoat.

 

[Mike Manson]

In what sense? A conscience sense, or a physical sense? And if the physical is present, doesn't that preclude the implementation of conscience in the very near future?

China got it right...1 child per.

Actually, that is not 100% correct.

The 1 child per family is enforced in big cities. Many people that live in big cities are still listed in the country side though. There you can have two children if the first was a girl. Minorities can also have two children.

Forced abortions do not happen that often anymore. The younger generations do not want to have many children anyway.

 

[JLMACN]

And just to add context to the argument, I am against abortion. The problem is, too many people refuse to responsibility for their own actions in the first place, which makes abortion a great scapegoat.

I am against abortion as well.

 

[ThaG]

I have yet to see a single person on the internet expressing support for that paper (the editors of the journal supported its publication, but not the views presented in it).

Absolutely amazing

 

[swoop187]

Abortion is unconstitutional...

Abortion impedes an individual (the child) from life and liberty. Not to mention IMO, I view abortion as first degree murder.

The morning after pill IMO is a slippery slope..

People should really use contraceptives - if they cant afford contraceptives then they shouldn't be fucking.

 

[ThaG]

What about these:

And what about overpopulation?

 

[swoop187]

Over population is a myth...........

If we (here in the US) all lived in double stacked apartments we could all fit in a city half the size of Texas..

 

[ThaG]

PRATT

 

[polluted]

The Earth isn't over populated. It is very mismanaged. How could humans waste all that brain on death and destruction. The solution is there. And its not to kill living human beings. Last I remember,thats murder

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

What about these:

The absence of a "perfect" solution isn't reason enough for me to abandon what I consider the best solution. If you spend your time hypothesizing about every what if then very few decisions could ever be made.

I feel terrible for babies born in that condition, but anytime we draw that line on a issue that exists on a spectrum, there will be negative repercussions on one side or the other.

Once you draw that line, the argument becomes way more open to interpretation and bias. Humans as a species aren't capable of making such decisions IMO.

If anything, I would think a panel of doctors could decide whether or not a child should be aborted based on medical conditions, but even then I would not support it because the decisions could sway heavily based on the views of the doctors.

And what about overpopulation?

I Pukokeki Ioulo Momu gave a good solution.

 

[ThaG]

The thing that people forget in all of these discussions is that some thing look so horrible to us only because we have decided so, i.e. if we had a different view of the world, we would accept as perfectly normal things that look unimaginable to us today. Something illustrated very well by the fact that numerous cultures have existed in the past, some of them at a considerable level of development who considered precisely that kind of practices as normal part of life. From infanticide in ancient Sparta to human sacrifices in Mesoamerica, and many others.

Basically, what is happening here is that people let their most hardened preconceived notions about the world influence their ability to logically evaluate ideas and situations even in cases when such logical reevaluation of above-mentioned preconceived notions would benefit humanity as a whole.

 

[JLMACN]

Basically, what is happening here is that people let their most hardened preconceived notions about the world influence their ability to logically evaluate ideas and situations even in cases when such logical reevaluation of above-mentioned preconceived notions would benefit humanity as a whole.

What is the goal you are trying to reach through practices of killing new-born babies that have, as you say, "no idea of self"??

 

[ThaG]

What is the goal you are trying to reach through practices of killing new-born babies that have, as you say, "no idea of self"??

There are two ways one arrives at the idea that this is acceptable and should be done:

1. (The one the paper discusses) Newborns with serious health problems, that if left to live will be an enormous burden on their parents, on society as a whole, and, in the end, on themselves too, usually without being able to contribute much to society in any way due to their mental disabilities. Related to this is the eugenics argument - we can in fact eradicate a lot of Mendelian disorders that manifest only later in life such as Huntington and improve the gene pool of humanity as a whole if we did not let the newborns with such diseases reproduce (which now, with whole-genome sequencing about to become a routine clinical practice, is entirely possible). The problem is eugenics has become a dirty word due to the totally misguided way in which it was pursued back in the days and together with it the very rational core idea behind it.

2. Overpopulation. This is more heinous than the first one because the reason why the problem of overpopulation dictates the acceptance of the practice of infanticide is that humanity as a whole has to stop its individual members from reproducing if humanity as a whole is to survie, but the most fundamental biological instinct of individual members is precisely to reproduce as much as possible. This means that both state-mandated forced abortion and state-mandated forced infanticide will have to be implemented if we are to seriously tackle our ovepropulation problem, i.e. we will have to change our socially accepted moral code in such a way that infanticide for surplus newborn babies is seen in a similar light to how penalties for tax evasion are seen today.

Note that the above are conclusions that inevitably follow when one thinks about the issues in a emotionally detached way. They are horrifying conclusions, no doubt about it, but the universe has no obligation towards us to maintain our emotional comfort, it is what it is and we have to adapt accordingly.

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

The thing that people forget in all of these discussions is that some thing look so horrible to us only because we have decided so, i.e. if we had a different view of the world, we would accept as perfectly normal things that look unimaginable to us today. Something illustrated very well by the fact that numerous cultures have existed in the past, some of them at a considerable level of development who considered precisely that kind of practices as normal part of life. From infanticide in ancient Sparta to human sacrifices in Mesoamerica, and many others.

Basically, what is happening here is that people let their most hardened preconceived notions about the world influence their ability to logically evaluate ideas and situations even in cases when such logical reevaluation of above-mentioned preconceived notions would benefit humanity as a whole.

Yeah and a lot of people in 1930s Germany thought genocide was a normal part of life, and that they were "strengthening the gene pool" :dead:

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

There are two ways one arrives at the idea that this is acceptable and should be done:

1. (The one the paper discusses) Newborns with serious health problems, that if left to live will be an enormous burden on their parents, on society as a whole, and, in the end, on themselves too, usually without being able to contribute much to society in any way due to their mental disabilities. Related to this is the eugenics argument - we can in fact eradicate a lot of Mendelian disorders that manifest only later in life such as Huntington and improve the gene pool of humanity as a whole if we did not let the newborns with such diseases reproduce (which now, with whole-genome sequencing about to become a routine clinical practice, is entirely possible). The problem is eugenics has become a dirty word due to the totally misguided way in which it was pursued back in the days and together with it the very rational core idea behind it.

2. Overpopulation. This is more heinous than the first one because the reason why the problem of overpopulation dictates the acceptance of the practice of infanticide is that humanity as a whole has to stop its individual members from reproducing if humanity as a whole is to survie, but the most fundamental biological instinct of individual members is precisely to reproduce as much as possible. This means that both state-mandated forced abortion and state-mandated forced infanticide will have to be implemented if we are to seriously tackle our ovepropulation problem, i.e. we will have to change our socially accepted moral code in such a way that infanticide for surplus newborn babies is seen in a similar light to how penalties for tax evasion are seen today.

Note that the above are conclusions that inevitably follow when one thinks about the issues in a emotionally detached way. They are horrifying conclusions, no doubt about it, but the universe has no obligation towards us to maintain our emotional comfort, it is what it is and we have to adapt accordingly.

Your problem is that you are smart enough to realize that God most likely doesn't exist but you are uncomfortable with the idea that there is no purpose or meaning to life and the human species, so you try to assign one by creating these "goals" to improve our species. It probably stems from your analytical background and impulse to control things around you.

It's no wonder that you advocate eugenics to to "improve the gene pool of humanity".

But to what end? So now we have improved our gene pool, so what? We are all still born, live, and die as inconsequential blips on the space time continuum. Embrace what we are.

 

[ThaG]

Your problem is that you are smart enough to realize that God most likely doesn't exist but you are uncomfortable with the idea that there is no purpose or meaning to life and the human species, so you try to assign one by creating these "goals" to improve our species. It probably stems from your analytical background and impulse to control things around you.

It's no wonder that you advocate eugenics to to "improve the gene pool of humanity".

When I say "improve the gene pool", I don't mean that in the sense of creating a new superior race as you may have taken, I only mean it in the sense of eradicating certain diseases that people should not be suffering from. That's something a bit different.

But to what end? So now we have improved our gene pool, so what? We are all still born, live, and die as inconsequential blips on the space time continuum. Embrace what we are.

There seems to be no purpose indeed. However, the universe is still quite a mysterious place and if not anything else, learning more about it is something worth pursuing. But we won't be able to do that if we commit the kind of collective suicide we're in the process of committing right now

 

[JLMACN]

^^^^^Yes....


Another thought is, when we come to the point where there are no more human with deficiencies, what then? I believe one of the greatest things about the human race is that throughout history, someone, somewhere, took medicine to another level. We took prosthetics to another level, we created hearing aids, SIGN LANGUAGE, cancer is being studied to depths never before, etc. But how can the human race do that when we consider the most laziest approach to solving a "problem"?......"eh, just kill it and get rid of it"...."it's not perfect".

That thinking can be so damaging to the human race.

I believe in God. I am glad that God see us as perfect in any condition we are in.

 

[ThaG]

^^^^^Yes....


Another thought is, when we come to the point where there are no more human with deficiencies, what then? I believe one of the greatest things about the human race is that throughout history, someone, somewhere, took medicine to another level. We took prosthetics to another level, we created hearing aids, SIGN LANGUAGE, cancer is being studied to depths never before, etc. But how can the human race do that when we consider the most laziest approach to solving a "problem"?......"eh, just kill it and get rid of it"...."it's not perfect".

That thinking can be so damaging to the human race.

I believe in God. I am glad that God see us as perfect in any condition we are in.

This has nothing to do with making the "human race perfect". We are talking about congenital disorders and Mendelian diseases. Those are actually the minority of what people suffer from - cardiovascualr diseases, diabetes, strokes, Alzheimer, mental disorders, etc., there isn't much that can be done about those genetically. It is the Down syndromes, the Huntingtons and the likes that we're talking about.

As usual, the accuracy and completeness of the information people have about a complex issues is a big problem

 

[Mr. Nice Guy]

This has nothing to do with making the "human race perfect". We are talking about congenital disorders and Mendelian diseases. Those are actually the minority of what people suffer from - cardiovascualr diseases, diabetes, strokes, Alzheimer, mental disorders, etc., there isn't much that can be done about those genetically. It is the Down syndromes, the Huntingtons and the likes that we're talking about.

As usual, the accuracy and completeness of the information people have about a complex issues is a big problem

What's funny is on the one hand, you say things like:

"As usual, the accuracy and completeness of the information people have about a complex issues is a big problem"

and

"Basically, what is happening here is that people let their most hardened preconceived notions about the world influence their ability to logically evaluate ideas and situations even in cases when such logical reevaluation of above-mentioned preconceived notions would benefit humanity as a whole."

and I don't need to go searching for quotes because we both know that over the years you have made quite a few disparaging remarks about the human species and many of our tendencies on here (rightfully so I might add).

So the funny part to me as having said all that, you then think the same people are capable of making such significant decisions as who lives or dies based on perceived disorders and diseases.

We are talking about the same species whose members who would give their children plastic surgery to improve their appearance before the child even knows why. They, we aren't capable of objectively making such decisions.

Once you draw that line at Alzheimer, how do you prevent an individual from shifting it to alopecia once you have given them the option? You can't. And someone will.