You are being as zero dimensional as the Lockdowners.
Ending the life of a zygote is not the same as ending the life of, say, a newborn. Stop pretending that you have some principled take that says it is. You don’t. Instead, you have that position due to the sorites paradox fallacy. I, however, do NOT have the hubris to believe that I know when a fetus becomes a person, nor how to balance the massively complex issues involved. And even if I had a principled theory, I DO know that there are fundamental constraints on our (and any finite thinking creature’s) ability to find the boundary. See… https://markchangizi.substack.com/p/abortion-and-the-sorites-paradox
I don't think it is "erring on the side of caution" as much as it is "we don't believe this is life at conception, but we will try to compromise". For those who believe (as I do) that life begins at conception, the act of abortion is such that it ends the future for a life where without that action it would be allowed to naturally survive. I don't think (just as with Covid) bringing up wild fringe possibilities and potential exceptions changes that fact. It is either ending a life, or it isn't.
But as far as abortion only concerning the fetus, the baby is certainly and literally tied to the mother as well. And excluding the "abortions of convenience", there are surely instances where patients are presented with "its either the mother or the baby". That is a heartbreaking thought.
But If we were to agree that both lives were actually precious and alive, choosing to end either future is tragic. Especially since we are relying on an expert (doctor) to predict that one will certainly die without terminating the other. Do we really know that it will be the case? The only certainty seems to be that by choosing to end one life, you will certainly end that life.
As for it being like Covid concerning freedom, again if we agree that the life is a life, then just like we shouldn't have a liberty to take a life, we shouldn't have a liberty to take an unborn life. Bodily autonomy becomes shared space for 9 months. I cant kick a passenger out of a moving jeep just because I am in the drivers seat.
Saying "There’s no down side to banning abortion completely" is a subjective statement. For those who believe it is akin to saying murder should be completely banned, it is understandable. For those who have their own definition of what it means to be alive, I can see how the statement would come across as, in the least, insensitive. But when something is wrong, it should be called wrong...completely.
Science tells us that human life begins at conception. As soon as fertilization takes place, the genetic makeup of the child is already complete.
The Bible tells us the God knew us before we were born (Jeremiah 1:5), and that all the days ordained for us are written in His book (Psalm 139:13-16). An unborn child was the first person to recognize Jesus (Luke 1:41)
Abortion is such a sensitive issue, and I have no desire to start a war with anyone who thinks differently. I just thought I would share my thoughts on the matter.
But few truly believe that a life is a life. A zygote is simply not morally the same kind of entity as a newborn. Most believe it is BECAUSE of the fallacy I point out above.
Thought experiment. Freak accident… Zygote splits into twins, and this iteratively happens 33 times, exponentially leading to around eight billion identical zygotes in a lady’s uterus, more than all the other people on Earth combined.
When nearly all eventually die, and hopefully several are born, you are committed to believing this was the worst human disaster the Earth has ever witnessed.
"A zygote is simply not morally the same kind of entity as a newborn."
I think the understanding of the origin of morality is often one of the biggest difference makers in how we inform our conscience. Admittedly I do not exactly know your take on it, but I trust that morality comes from what God says is right and wrong. God’s moral standard is objective and absolute.
In that thought experiment, No human intervention took place. Assuming this scenario takes place, call it an act of God or a natural result of living in a fallen world, but in that case no human would be morally responsible for it.
Shifting the blame to God (as would likely be a logical shift) would not effect His moral goodness either since he is free to give and take away that which he creates.
I cant claim to know what the fates of the hypothetical zygotes that didn't make it are, but I do think it is unrelated to the act of abortion. Even in secular morality it is often when we talk of human intervention on an issue that the lines of that morality get blurred or crossed.
Side Note: I appreciate you and the work you do. We happen to disagree here, but I am encouraged to see you respond calmly and clearly (compared to some of the hateful responses I have received elsewhere).
If we knew of it happening, it WOULD be one of the worst disasters we've ever witnessed, truth is we don't know if anything like this has ever happened (even on a particularly smaller scale), but I doubt it. This is why some Christians are against IVF, because that process often involves fertilizing a bunch of eggs and then eventually discarding the "unneeded" ones... those are tiny humans, each with unique DNA.
No. That is absolutely an ad absurdum claim. And false. You would NOT truly believe it to be the worst tragedy that has ever occurred throughout human history.
You are letting your theory guide what’s common sense rather than the other way around.
Perhaps, but it's also an absurd scenario, but if we had a way of knowing that literally 8 BILLION souls were extinguished, that some would absolutely believe that it were the biggest tragedy in history. Perhaps 2nd only to the time that the human population was reduced to 8 people.
They've been sharpening this issue for 30 years to use it as a wedge right now. When the world is falling apart, when we most need to unite, they're trying to split us using abortion.
I'm pro-choice, but I'm perfectly comfortable with SCOTUS ruling that this is an issue for the states to decide. Given the polarization that exists on this subject, I think it's correct and desirable that one side doesn't win by federal fiat. Everyone can choose to live in a state that expresses their values.
But most of all, this issue is not at all important right now. It will not be important until we have saved the world from the ongoing engineered health and economic collapse. I hope everyone sees that.
So, in Mark Changizi's world, if I understand it correctly:
> Big Bang
> Billions of years of random, amoral death, disease and evolution
> Mankind arises from the ooze
> ~6 billion years of ooze later, mankind achieves "full-moral-agent" status.
You are having trouble finding some kind of moral the line between a "zygote" and a 9 month old baby, but what is your consistent standard that allows you to say the 9 month old has any moral value in the first place? Why does ooze from year 6 billion (mankind) have more moral value than year 0 ooze? Why did 6 billion years of did meaningless, random death/disease/violence result in any kind of morality or intrinsic value whatsoever? Why should I draw my lines as Mark Changizi does?
I'm pretty sure your answer to such questions would be arbitrary, emotion driven and/or largely based on tradition. I know you are not an emotionally driven type of person, but I don't see how you answer the question in any other way. If your answer is arbitrary, as I expect it is, why is someone elses arbitrary answer better or worse than your own?
"Hmmm, if you lived through the last two years of Covid, you should be afraid of any position that claims to have no down sides."
I can't say I'm familiar with this argument being made by anyone. I acknowledge there is a down side to restricting abortion. Abortion may make my life more convenient, I may be happier on some level, I'll probably save some money, etc. Every sin has some kind of upside or we wouldn't commit them in the first place. But the argument from the religious pro-lifers (at least in my personal bubble) was never "There is only upsides to ending all abortion!" The standard for all morality was/is: There's a God, God has a law and lockdown/forced meds/zygote killing/etc are contrary to that law.
I know you don't think much of that line of thought, but I think it's a more consistent position than your own. I do not understand what the basis for your moral system is, at all, other than you find it personally pleasing.
I think you are taking some kind of standard of your own, applying it to another group that never used that standard, and then claiming hypocrisy for them not adhering to the standard that they never had.
The assumption above was that there IS some line, let’s say 6 weeks, where the fetus becomes a person. But we don’t know this. So, just err on the side of caution and assume it’s at 0 weeks. Cuz there’s no down side.
But… That presumes there are no other ethical things to balance. But there are. Bodily autonomy of the mother, the extent to which one is comfortable with the state getting their hands in everyone’s affairs to ensure no pre-person fetus gets aborted, and so on. There are ethical trade-offs. If you fail to see that there are, then you are being one dimensional — or zero-dimensional — just like the Lockdowners.
I think you've smoothed over a lot of presuppositions that you have taken for granted to let you get to this point in the conversation in a consistent manner, but ok.
I acknowledge there is sometimes a balancing act of sorts , when it comes to abortion. If Mom's life is severely at risk due to the pregnancy, then there's a balance to address. If the Mom will get to spend less time shopping due to the pregnancy, I acknowledge that there is a balance in that instance also. Unlike you, I think that when it comes to abortions of convenience (or "autonomy of the mother" is you prefer), finding the balance is a solved problem, when you use Biblical morality.
So I've acknowledged the balance exists, as you do. You seem to somewhat uncharitably think my position is "zero-dimensional" because I've solved the balance in a way you would not. I've given my standard for morality and for how to I find the balance (God's law, which is a reflection of His character). I don't think you can communicate why I should adopt your balance, other than you have kind of a hazy feeling that it's "right". I agree Mom's bodily autonomy holds some value, but why do I need to weigh the scales as you do before I achieve the intellectual depth that you think you have achieved?
I don’t know (1) when or how gradually a fetus becomes a person, (2) nor how to balance that with mom’s bodily autonomy or the dangers of the state enforcing bans (e.g., on zygote-aborting next-day-pills).
So your problem is only that people fail to acknowledge abortion related tradeoffs exist? As long as I acknowledge that tradeoffs exist, you don't care where I draw the line? So "No abortion ever!" is a valid position, as long as I acknowledge the costs of the position?
"I keep hearing extreme pro-lifers pose the abortion issue as if it only concerns the fetus."
I really do not think they is an accurate portrayal of most pro-lifers. If I had to bet on Mark Changizi vs the average pro-lifer in a debate, I'd bet on you; I think many of them are poor communicators and they are largely emotionally driven. But if you pressed the pro-lifers, at least the smarter ones that don't have their brain on auto-pilot would say that there are competing interests. They think the fetus is the issue that TRUMPS almost all other issues. They do not think it is the ONLY issue.
You are being as dismissive and insulting as the lockdowners.
In this short article, you present a ridiculous strawman as if it were a serious pro-life position. "No downside"? That's the position you choose to ridicule? And then when called out, you assign some other completely made-up position to me and try to ridicule that - zygotes and sorites. Sure.
If you wish to engage in intelligent, even scientific, discussion, you must do better. Respect the views of others, rather than caricaturing them. If you wish instead to waste your time on insults, then keep doing what you're doing.
My "ridiculous strawman" is precisely an argument that has been made to me multiple times over the last week alone. "Look, nobody knows when a fetus becomes a person. But, we lose nothing by erring on the side of caution. At worst, we're banning abortions of some cases of non-persons. But at least we ensure no fetuses who were persons are aborted." This is not a rare argument.
It is rare, in that no serious person makes this argument in the way you have framed it. You have framed it so as to knock it down. Like a straw man. A ridiculous one. One may as well argue against the most rigorous thoughts of AOC.
What a serious person might say is that there are indeed costs to regulating abortion, but that those costs are outweighed by the risk of authorizing or encouraging the killing of an innocent person. Even if it is not fully certain that a person exists. Demolishing instead the easy straw man is a cheap tactic, and adds no value to this old argument.
I think it's fairly obvious that a "fetus" becomes a person pretty much at conception-- New DNA is created. It exists. It is not the same as that which came before or anything that has ever existed before; despite being treated much like a cancer by many, it's not. This is without even getting into religious arguments of whether this "clump of cells" has a soul or not at any point.
I tend to agree, but would admit to a bit more doubt. I would say that a "human being" clearly comes into existence at conception. Is it not human? Is it not a being?
Personhood is perhaps less clear. But I will say that the human race has a very poor and destructive track record, when it comes to determinations that one class or another of human beings is less than full persons, and may thus be treated as non-persons. At one time, three-fifths of a person was the expedient conclusion. That did not work out well.
I understand what you mean, but just FYI, the three-fifths of a person thing was a compromise because slave owners wanted them counted as "whole" people... but for purposes of the census, so that they could have more representation in Congress-- but did not want them to be able to vote or have citizenship. The non-slave states thought it unfair that slaves with no other particular rights would get to be counted for representation purposes-- hence, the compromise.
Traditionally, "personhood" has started at what is/was known as the quickening, or when a woman is able to first able to feel the baby moving. Science has since moved that threshold much earlier in the pregnancy. I'd say at conception, others would say brain activity, others fetal heartbeat, and others not until the baby has literally left the womb... but science clearly shows that you are right, another being, a human, is growing inside that woman.
The pro-lifers are a particularly hypocritical bunch, from my experience.
I am an extreme pro-lifer.
I an an extreme anti-raper.
I am an extremist against child abuse.
I am an extremist against heinous crimes in general.
Clearly, you are my moral and intellectual superior.
You are being as zero dimensional as the Lockdowners.
Ending the life of a zygote is not the same as ending the life of, say, a newborn. Stop pretending that you have some principled take that says it is. You don’t. Instead, you have that position due to the sorites paradox fallacy. I, however, do NOT have the hubris to believe that I know when a fetus becomes a person, nor how to balance the massively complex issues involved. And even if I had a principled theory, I DO know that there are fundamental constraints on our (and any finite thinking creature’s) ability to find the boundary. See… https://markchangizi.substack.com/p/abortion-and-the-sorites-paradox
I don't think it is "erring on the side of caution" as much as it is "we don't believe this is life at conception, but we will try to compromise". For those who believe (as I do) that life begins at conception, the act of abortion is such that it ends the future for a life where without that action it would be allowed to naturally survive. I don't think (just as with Covid) bringing up wild fringe possibilities and potential exceptions changes that fact. It is either ending a life, or it isn't.
But as far as abortion only concerning the fetus, the baby is certainly and literally tied to the mother as well. And excluding the "abortions of convenience", there are surely instances where patients are presented with "its either the mother or the baby". That is a heartbreaking thought.
But If we were to agree that both lives were actually precious and alive, choosing to end either future is tragic. Especially since we are relying on an expert (doctor) to predict that one will certainly die without terminating the other. Do we really know that it will be the case? The only certainty seems to be that by choosing to end one life, you will certainly end that life.
As for it being like Covid concerning freedom, again if we agree that the life is a life, then just like we shouldn't have a liberty to take a life, we shouldn't have a liberty to take an unborn life. Bodily autonomy becomes shared space for 9 months. I cant kick a passenger out of a moving jeep just because I am in the drivers seat.
Saying "There’s no down side to banning abortion completely" is a subjective statement. For those who believe it is akin to saying murder should be completely banned, it is understandable. For those who have their own definition of what it means to be alive, I can see how the statement would come across as, in the least, insensitive. But when something is wrong, it should be called wrong...completely.
Science tells us that human life begins at conception. As soon as fertilization takes place, the genetic makeup of the child is already complete.
The Bible tells us the God knew us before we were born (Jeremiah 1:5), and that all the days ordained for us are written in His book (Psalm 139:13-16). An unborn child was the first person to recognize Jesus (Luke 1:41)
Abortion is such a sensitive issue, and I have no desire to start a war with anyone who thinks differently. I just thought I would share my thoughts on the matter.
But few truly believe that a life is a life. A zygote is simply not morally the same kind of entity as a newborn. Most believe it is BECAUSE of the fallacy I point out above.
Thought experiment. Freak accident… Zygote splits into twins, and this iteratively happens 33 times, exponentially leading to around eight billion identical zygotes in a lady’s uterus, more than all the other people on Earth combined.
When nearly all eventually die, and hopefully several are born, you are committed to believing this was the worst human disaster the Earth has ever witnessed.
Which is clearly absurd.
"A zygote is simply not morally the same kind of entity as a newborn."
I think the understanding of the origin of morality is often one of the biggest difference makers in how we inform our conscience. Admittedly I do not exactly know your take on it, but I trust that morality comes from what God says is right and wrong. God’s moral standard is objective and absolute.
In that thought experiment, No human intervention took place. Assuming this scenario takes place, call it an act of God or a natural result of living in a fallen world, but in that case no human would be morally responsible for it.
Shifting the blame to God (as would likely be a logical shift) would not effect His moral goodness either since he is free to give and take away that which he creates.
I cant claim to know what the fates of the hypothetical zygotes that didn't make it are, but I do think it is unrelated to the act of abortion. Even in secular morality it is often when we talk of human intervention on an issue that the lines of that morality get blurred or crossed.
Side Note: I appreciate you and the work you do. We happen to disagree here, but I am encouraged to see you respond calmly and clearly (compared to some of the hateful responses I have received elsewhere).
If we knew of it happening, it WOULD be one of the worst disasters we've ever witnessed, truth is we don't know if anything like this has ever happened (even on a particularly smaller scale), but I doubt it. This is why some Christians are against IVF, because that process often involves fertilizing a bunch of eggs and then eventually discarding the "unneeded" ones... those are tiny humans, each with unique DNA.
No. That is absolutely an ad absurdum claim. And false. You would NOT truly believe it to be the worst tragedy that has ever occurred throughout human history.
You are letting your theory guide what’s common sense rather than the other way around.
Perhaps, but it's also an absurd scenario, but if we had a way of knowing that literally 8 BILLION souls were extinguished, that some would absolutely believe that it were the biggest tragedy in history. Perhaps 2nd only to the time that the human population was reduced to 8 people.
They've been sharpening this issue for 30 years to use it as a wedge right now. When the world is falling apart, when we most need to unite, they're trying to split us using abortion.
I'm pro-choice, but I'm perfectly comfortable with SCOTUS ruling that this is an issue for the states to decide. Given the polarization that exists on this subject, I think it's correct and desirable that one side doesn't win by federal fiat. Everyone can choose to live in a state that expresses their values.
But most of all, this issue is not at all important right now. It will not be important until we have saved the world from the ongoing engineered health and economic collapse. I hope everyone sees that.
So, in Mark Changizi's world, if I understand it correctly:
> Big Bang
> Billions of years of random, amoral death, disease and evolution
> Mankind arises from the ooze
> ~6 billion years of ooze later, mankind achieves "full-moral-agent" status.
You are having trouble finding some kind of moral the line between a "zygote" and a 9 month old baby, but what is your consistent standard that allows you to say the 9 month old has any moral value in the first place? Why does ooze from year 6 billion (mankind) have more moral value than year 0 ooze? Why did 6 billion years of did meaningless, random death/disease/violence result in any kind of morality or intrinsic value whatsoever? Why should I draw my lines as Mark Changizi does?
I'm pretty sure your answer to such questions would be arbitrary, emotion driven and/or largely based on tradition. I know you are not an emotionally driven type of person, but I don't see how you answer the question in any other way. If your answer is arbitrary, as I expect it is, why is someone elses arbitrary answer better or worse than your own?
"Hmmm, if you lived through the last two years of Covid, you should be afraid of any position that claims to have no down sides."
I can't say I'm familiar with this argument being made by anyone. I acknowledge there is a down side to restricting abortion. Abortion may make my life more convenient, I may be happier on some level, I'll probably save some money, etc. Every sin has some kind of upside or we wouldn't commit them in the first place. But the argument from the religious pro-lifers (at least in my personal bubble) was never "There is only upsides to ending all abortion!" The standard for all morality was/is: There's a God, God has a law and lockdown/forced meds/zygote killing/etc are contrary to that law.
I know you don't think much of that line of thought, but I think it's a more consistent position than your own. I do not understand what the basis for your moral system is, at all, other than you find it personally pleasing.
I think you are taking some kind of standard of your own, applying it to another group that never used that standard, and then claiming hypocrisy for them not adhering to the standard that they never had.
The assumption above was that there IS some line, let’s say 6 weeks, where the fetus becomes a person. But we don’t know this. So, just err on the side of caution and assume it’s at 0 weeks. Cuz there’s no down side.
But… That presumes there are no other ethical things to balance. But there are. Bodily autonomy of the mother, the extent to which one is comfortable with the state getting their hands in everyone’s affairs to ensure no pre-person fetus gets aborted, and so on. There are ethical trade-offs. If you fail to see that there are, then you are being one dimensional — or zero-dimensional — just like the Lockdowners.
I think you've smoothed over a lot of presuppositions that you have taken for granted to let you get to this point in the conversation in a consistent manner, but ok.
I acknowledge there is sometimes a balancing act of sorts , when it comes to abortion. If Mom's life is severely at risk due to the pregnancy, then there's a balance to address. If the Mom will get to spend less time shopping due to the pregnancy, I acknowledge that there is a balance in that instance also. Unlike you, I think that when it comes to abortions of convenience (or "autonomy of the mother" is you prefer), finding the balance is a solved problem, when you use Biblical morality.
So I've acknowledged the balance exists, as you do. You seem to somewhat uncharitably think my position is "zero-dimensional" because I've solved the balance in a way you would not. I've given my standard for morality and for how to I find the balance (God's law, which is a reflection of His character). I don't think you can communicate why I should adopt your balance, other than you have kind of a hazy feeling that it's "right". I agree Mom's bodily autonomy holds some value, but why do I need to weigh the scales as you do before I achieve the intellectual depth that you think you have achieved?
I absolutely do NOT know how to balance.
I don’t know (1) when or how gradually a fetus becomes a person, (2) nor how to balance that with mom’s bodily autonomy or the dangers of the state enforcing bans (e.g., on zygote-aborting next-day-pills).
It takes a sophisticated theory to do all this.
So your problem is only that people fail to acknowledge abortion related tradeoffs exist? As long as I acknowledge that tradeoffs exist, you don't care where I draw the line? So "No abortion ever!" is a valid position, as long as I acknowledge the costs of the position?
"I keep hearing extreme pro-lifers pose the abortion issue as if it only concerns the fetus."
I really do not think they is an accurate portrayal of most pro-lifers. If I had to bet on Mark Changizi vs the average pro-lifer in a debate, I'd bet on you; I think many of them are poor communicators and they are largely emotionally driven. But if you pressed the pro-lifers, at least the smarter ones that don't have their brain on auto-pilot would say that there are competing interests. They think the fetus is the issue that TRUMPS almost all other issues. They do not think it is the ONLY issue.
(1) They think the fetus always trumps, no matter the age, because they mistakenly fall for the slippery slope fallacy.
(2) Once one corrects that, and realizes there is a period of non-full-personhood, then the other ethical issues make nontrivial contributions.
You are being as dismissive and insulting as the lockdowners.
In this short article, you present a ridiculous strawman as if it were a serious pro-life position. "No downside"? That's the position you choose to ridicule? And then when called out, you assign some other completely made-up position to me and try to ridicule that - zygotes and sorites. Sure.
If you wish to engage in intelligent, even scientific, discussion, you must do better. Respect the views of others, rather than caricaturing them. If you wish instead to waste your time on insults, then keep doing what you're doing.
My "ridiculous strawman" is precisely an argument that has been made to me multiple times over the last week alone. "Look, nobody knows when a fetus becomes a person. But, we lose nothing by erring on the side of caution. At worst, we're banning abortions of some cases of non-persons. But at least we ensure no fetuses who were persons are aborted." This is not a rare argument.
It is rare, in that no serious person makes this argument in the way you have framed it. You have framed it so as to knock it down. Like a straw man. A ridiculous one. One may as well argue against the most rigorous thoughts of AOC.
What a serious person might say is that there are indeed costs to regulating abortion, but that those costs are outweighed by the risk of authorizing or encouraging the killing of an innocent person. Even if it is not fully certain that a person exists. Demolishing instead the easy straw man is a cheap tactic, and adds no value to this old argument.
I think it's fairly obvious that a "fetus" becomes a person pretty much at conception-- New DNA is created. It exists. It is not the same as that which came before or anything that has ever existed before; despite being treated much like a cancer by many, it's not. This is without even getting into religious arguments of whether this "clump of cells" has a soul or not at any point.
I tend to agree, but would admit to a bit more doubt. I would say that a "human being" clearly comes into existence at conception. Is it not human? Is it not a being?
Personhood is perhaps less clear. But I will say that the human race has a very poor and destructive track record, when it comes to determinations that one class or another of human beings is less than full persons, and may thus be treated as non-persons. At one time, three-fifths of a person was the expedient conclusion. That did not work out well.
I understand what you mean, but just FYI, the three-fifths of a person thing was a compromise because slave owners wanted them counted as "whole" people... but for purposes of the census, so that they could have more representation in Congress-- but did not want them to be able to vote or have citizenship. The non-slave states thought it unfair that slaves with no other particular rights would get to be counted for representation purposes-- hence, the compromise.
Traditionally, "personhood" has started at what is/was known as the quickening, or when a woman is able to first able to feel the baby moving. Science has since moved that threshold much earlier in the pregnancy. I'd say at conception, others would say brain activity, others fetal heartbeat, and others not until the baby has literally left the womb... but science clearly shows that you are right, another being, a human, is growing inside that woman.