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m17l6s85
This is a thoughtful article but I think it's missing an option. I think some pro-choice people think of situations like these the way they might think of people who really really love dogs. There are dog owners who think of their dogs almost like others think of human children and would be absolutely devastated if one of their dogs died. People who don't love dogs that much can recognize how emotionally impactful that is to people who do love dogs that much while still not thinking dogs should be afforded legal rights. I'm not suggesting human children are equivalent to dogs. I'm suggesting there are frameworks here that would allow someone to recognize and empathize with real grief while not sharing that grief personally and not believing that grief implies anything about legal status.
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Bgoodsy
As more of a side note, I think the issue of fatherhood takes away from your main argument of personhood. Until you have the opportunity to actively father your child(ren), it is up to you (and each person) to decide when you experience patrescence. For me, I became a mother when my first child was born; before that, I was pregnant - not only with a baby - but pregnant with my new identity as a mom that was not yet fully realized. I completely respect those who take the title of “mother” and “father” while pregnant or after experiencing loss, but it is such a subjective transition into that new role, that, for me, wouldn’t have been fair to claim before I was actually mothering.
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andreweri
I think it's fair to say that there's an aspect of parental identity which is experienced subjectively. Still, I would argue that there is an objective sense in which a person is a mother or father from conception onward, because they have a specific relationship with the newly formed child and have attendant responsibilities. It is this objective sense which is used to justify taking child support payments, for example, from men who don't self-identify as fathers but who have fathered children.
As to the issue of fatherhood as distraction: it's probably a tangent, but I'm hoping that empathy with persons who are visible can be used to extend empathy to persons who are invisible (playing off of 1 John 4:20).
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Bgoodsy
right - but fathers who pay child support pay money to support children who have been born and are alive. your example doesn’t support the objective label of fatherhood existing at conception, but I’m open to changing my mind if you have a better example :) also, your reasoning that fathers of unborn children have “attendant responsibilities” doesn’t make sense when they can’t directly attend to them in any way...?
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Elahatterol
I will start by saying that I am very
sorry that you lost your first child to miscarriage.
I wish you, your wife, and your current child all the best in the future.
I agree that there are no "magic dividers" for stages of human development between conception and, say, a two -year-old.
That is why abortion supporters cannot, RATIONALLY, choose some development levels of the unborn as more "human" than others.
Having said that, I will add that even if someone decided to go for the article's third option, that the unborn don't "quite merit full status, but is of sufficient value as a human being that its loss should be recognized and it should be accorded some rights", that would be conceding that most abortions are wrong.
Even sincerely believing that the human embryo/fetus is of no more value than an animal would be enough to outlaw most abortions.
But, of course, this is where those who are eager to call others "science deniers" are denying both science and logic themselves.
The "wantedness" factor is not a logical basis for deciding who gets to live and die, either.
Wasn't the "wantedness by a man" pretty much he criteria of worth applied to women and BORN children in the not-so-distant past?
Good point, also, that even though the developing baby may be "unwanted" by his/her parents, they would be VERY wanted by some couples trying to adopt a child--IF they only knew.
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Basset_Hound
The "wantedness" factor is not a logical basis for deciding who gets to live and die, either.
Wasn't the "wantedness by a man" pretty much he criteria of worth applied to women and BORN children in the not-so-distant past?
YES!!!! YES!!!! YES!!!!
I've pointed out that there are LOTS of occasions when a child is "wanted" and deliberately conceived, but the parents change their minds AFTER the child is born. If I get any response at all, it's to claim that my question is "nonsensical". The contention both of us are trying to establish here is that if "wantedness" is a criterion for deciding whether or not an unborn child lives or dies, why can't it apply to other situations with individuals already born. We already have "ethicists" arguing that infanticide can be justified with similar arguments as those used for abortion.
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Elahatterol
"There are LOTS of occasions when a child is "wanted" and deliberately conceived, but the parents change their minds AFTER the child is born".
That is, sadly, very true.
The feelings of how a woman/couple feel when first getting news of an unplanned pregnancy may or may not be how they feel even later in the pregnancy, let alone years later.
There are many, many abortions that result not from PLANNED pregnancies!
Remember the "Dear Prudence" articles about how a woman wanted her mother (the child's grandmother) to help her abort a 20-week baby of an apparently "wanted" pregnancy owing to her breakup with her husband?
It is indeed very telling that some of the most extreme abortion advocates--such as Richard Dawkins or Jerry Coyne--are indeed inching closer to both government coerced/forced abortions and infanticide, right here in the US.
https://disqus.com/home/discussion/secularprolifeblog/secular_pro_life_perspectives_pro_life_agnostic_running_for_senate_in_missouri/#comment-3930350254
As for 'non-sensical responses' or no responses, or no response except to resort to name-calling and character assault, I have gotten that MANY times with abortion trolls on "uncomfortable" questions.
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Basset_Hound
I remember that "Dear Prudence" article quite well, and I prayed fervently that the pregnant mom came to her senses. However for some women, the ultimate act of revenge is to kill the child the two of them initially wanted.
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Elahatterol
True, sadly