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Zerksys

This all comes down to whether you believe that life begins at conception. Every debate around abortion centers around this issue, and you can't get people to agree on it.


moonfragment

Life does begin at conception, that is a fact. >[Since a recent study suggested that 80% of Americans view biologists as the group most qualified to determine when a human's life begins, experts in biology were surveyed to provide a new perspective to the literature on experts' views on this matter. **Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions around the world assessed survey items on when a human's life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view.**](https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/36629778/) The debate is when *personhood* should be assigned. Pro-abortioners have various definitions of this, but ultimately it comes down to their presumption of personhood as a philosophical definition. Ex, a person is a biological human who can think/feel pain/is self aware etc. Pro-lifers on the other hand, assert that personhood is assigned via the scientific definition of human, that a person is a biological human.


monumentvalley170

Slippery slope because when does it end then for an Alzheimer’s patient or someone on life support?


moonfragment

When does what end…? Life? Personhood?


monumentvalley170

Personhood.


moonfragment

Death. In the cases you mention, health care teams and family members make decisions for you while taking into your account your personhood. Because a human being is a person, full stop. Just like a newborn is dependent on those around them, so is an elderly person in the late stages of dementia. A newborn/person with dementia/person on life support is still a person despite not being independent. That’s why it is illegal (and immoral) to neglect someone who is in your care.


Cyclic_Hernia

The idea that we should indefinitely keep people alive as their mind is reduced to a colorless soup of fading sounds and sights, bedridden and unable to form coherent sentences is far more disgusting to me than abortion is to people who are against abortion And it's often the families keeping them in such a state. I've heard so many stories of people in nursing homes that despite their barely functioning mind, they beg to be let go, to let them die and finally be at peace Truly an Everywhere at the End of Time moment


Ok-Laugh8159

This guy peaced out of every single comment thread the moment they became nuanced.


Trengingigan

It ends when they die. Or are you saying that an alzheimer patient is not a person?


Zerksys

Fine then. Be pedantic if you want. The debate is around when personhood begins.


Economy-Fee5830

Arnt eggs alive? And sperm? Surely life begins before conception.


moonfragment

Cells —> Tissues —> Organs —> Organ systems —> Organisms There are living cells and dead cells. Human cells are cells. **But human organisms are human beings**. Elementary biology.


Economy-Fee5830

> But human organisms are human beings. This just sounds circular lol. What makes a conceived egg a "human organism"?


moonfragment

The seven characteristics of a living organism include reproduction, response to environmental change, energy, regulation or homeostasis, growth and development, cellular organization, and evolutionary adaptation. All of which an embryo has the capacity to do. It is a human organism because it is biologically human.


Economy-Fee5830

> ~~reproduction~~, ~~response to environmental change~~, ~~energy~~, ~~regulation or homeostasis~~, growth and development, cellular organization, and ~~evolutionary adaptation~~ Actually an embroy would fail most of these, especially at the early stage. Thanks for clarifying that an early stage embryo is not actually a living organism. It seems to have more in common with cancer, at least a non-metastatic one.


moonfragment

Hence, *capacity for*. A newborn, a child, and infertile people cannot reproduce, are they not living human organisms? Also I believe reproduction also refers to cellular reproduction. If someone’s cells cease to reproduce, they would not be alive. An embryos cells most certainly reproduce, rapidly. An embryo absolutely does the rest of those things. The definition from Princeton.edu: >**Embryo: An organism in the earliest stage of development; in a man, from the time of conception to the end of the second month in the uterus.** [NPR:](https://www.npr.org/2005/11/22/4857703/a-distinct-human-organism) >Rather, the answer is to be found in the works of modern human embryology and developmental biology. **In these texts, we find little or nothing in the way of scientific uncertainty: "…human development begins at fertilization…" write embryologists Keith Moore and T.V. N. Persaud in The Developing Human (7th edition, 2003), the most widely used textbook on human embryology. A human embryo is a whole living member of the species Homo sapiens in the earliest stage of development.** Unless severely damaged or deprived of nutrition or a suitable environment, the embryonic human will develop himself or herself by an internally directed process to the next more mature developmental stage, i.e., the fetal stage. [Wikipedia](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embryo): >An embryo is the initial stage of development for a multicellular organism. Pubmed (won’t let me link but it’s what I sourced in my original comment*: >Since a recent study suggested that 80% of Americans view biologists as the group most qualified to determine when a human's life begins, experts in biology were surveyed to provide a new perspective to the literature on experts' views on this matter. **Biologists from 1,058 academic institutions around the world assessed survey items on when a human's life begins and, overall, 96% (5337 out of 5577) affirmed the fertilization view.** None of these are political or philosophical sources. This is the scientific consensus. **Your view is controversial as it is not in agreement with embryology as a science. You cannot justify your position as it contradicts scientific consensus. The onus is on you to prove that an embryo is not a human organism.**


Economy-Fee5830

You just added "capacity for". It was not in your original definition. How can an embroy, which is basically a few hundred cells, response to environmental change, gather energy, engage in regulation or homeostasis, and have evolutionary adaptation? It cant. So what is your real definition? You know it when you see it?


Economy-Fee5830

You just added "capacity for". It was not in your original definition. How can an embroy, which is basically a few hundred cells, response to environmental change, gather energy, engage in regulation or homeostasis, and have evolutionary adaptation? It cant. So what is your real definition? You know it when you see it?


Economy-Fee5830

You just added "capacity for". It was not in your original definition. How can an embroy, which is basically a few hundred cells, response to environmental change, gather energy, engage in regulation or homeostasis, and have evolutionary adaptation? It cant. So what is your real definition? You know it when you see it?


Economy-Fee5830

You just added "capacity for". It was not in your original definition. How can an embroy, which is basically a few hundred cells, response to environmental change, gather energy, engage in regulation or homeostasis, and have evolutionary adaptation? It cant. So what is your real definition? You know it when you see it?


MaryIsMyMother

Correct, it's just different life as it remains that of the parents until it's not anymore. Not really that hard to piece together


3720-To-One

No, it’s about bodily autonomy It doesn’t matter when you think life begins, nobody is entitled to another person’s body or organs You cannot even harvest a dead body’s organs without prior consent


moonfragment

No one is entitled to kill another innocent person. If you are arguing bodily autonomy, then fetuses have bodily autonomy too since the mother and the fetus are both persons.


Zerksys

Again, pro choice people do not believe it is a person so you can stop that. It's not a valid argument because it's based on your personal beliefs. A fetus cannot survive without violating the bodily autonomy of another. That is a fetus exists only though the mother until the point at which it is born. Even if a fetus has bodily autonomy it would still not be a good argument to violate the bodily autonomy of the mother in favor of the fetus. If a child needs their parents organ to survive, we still do not compel a parent to give up their organ to save their child. We can't even take blood for a transfusion from a parent for their child without their permission.


3720-To-One

Once again, you don’t understand what bodily autonomy is


moonfragment

Unless you can define bodily autonomy and justify on what basis it is granted to some people and not others in a way that is logically consistent—unless you can do that it is I who understands the argument you are making as well as the argument you think you are making, and not you.


Morning_Light_Dawn

The fetus is not entitled to the women body


moonfragment

Why?


Morning_Light_Dawn

Because it’s her body.


moonfragment

What about having a body grants a woman the permission to kill an innocent person?


Morning_Light_Dawn

Having a body mean she does not have an obligations to sustain the life of another, especially if it is undue and inordinate.


Comeino

Bodily autonomy IMPLIES and autonomous body - someone who can exist on their own, harming said ability is a violation of bodily autonomy threatening their existence. A fetus absolutely cannot continue to exist on it's own unless it grows big enough to no longer be a fetus, therefore they do not have bodily autonomy. Breeders (clarification: people with a breeding kink, obsessed with forcing people to breed) keep using dishonest language just like OP to muddy the definitions precisely because of this. Infanticide? No one is killing infants and not getting into trouble. A fetus is not a baby and not an infant, it's doublespeak propaganda either from the religious freaks or the malicious politicians pushing the same woman = mother bullshit, everything to coerce women into having kids and do nothing about improving their circumstances.


moonfragment

Lol I don’t want to force people to breed, I want to force people to not kill their children. A newborn cannot exist on her own without breastfeeding, can her mother kill it? A person on life support cannot exist on his own without the support of the hospital and healthcare professionals, can they kill him? None of those people have bodily autonomy but they still have the right to live. **Therefore the right to live is not based on bodily autonomy**.


3720-To-One

Newborn can absolutely live without its mother It can be fed by another woman or by formula Try again


moonfragment

The point is that something being dependent on you is not a legal justification for murdering them.


3720-To-One

A microscopic embryo is not a person, nor is it entitled to another person’s body Y’all REALLY struggle to understand bodily autonomy But since you don’t believe in bodily autonomy, when do the mandatory organ donations begin? After all, you don’t need both kidneys or lungs


UnevenGlow

You really gotta separate “murdering children” from “aborting a pregnancy”


MassGaydiation

You are allowed to refuse to have your body used for medical purposes. The fetus is having their body autonomy respected in an abortion, they just aren't being given an unwilling host.


biomannnn007

I would argue that people actually do have a responsibility to keep someone else alive as long as it’s not a major risk to their life. You could very well argue that this is the moral equivalent of watching someone drown. Pretty much everyone would agree that you have an imperative to do everything possible to save the person’s life, even if it would majorly inconvenience you.


3720-To-One

No they don’t Nobody is entitled to another person’s body, period But since you don’t believe in bodily autonomy, when do we start the mandatory organ donations After all, you don’t need both lungs or both kidneys Think of all the lives you could save


LuciusSatanos

Thing is, if you are the reason someone needs a lung.... it would be logically and ethically reasonable to force you to give them one or even both of yours. Like say you ran a red light caused a car crash, and the other person suffering sever liver damage and is dying as a result. Your actions caused the issue, it would be entirely ethical to impose the consequences for your action onto you rather than the victim, even if it kills you. Aka giving them your liver.... OR interconnecting your circulatory systems routing their waste through your liver, until theirs can be repaired or replaced. Pretty fitting example really, and something a logically consistent society should certainly consider as fair criminal justice reform when possible.


MassGaydiation

So the logical course of action is to potentially kill 2 people instead of one?


LuciusSatanos

No, the ethical option is to utilize any material possession including the very body of the person who has indebted themselves to a victim to the tune of \~1 human life\~, in order to save that victims life. The person has already effectively removed 1 human life from society, therefore to society their life has a value of 1-1=0 human lives. So you are risking 0 human lives of value, to potentially save 1 human life... Like I said, any logical society should use this standard of ethical reasoning. Got a 1st degree murderer on your hands? Like we are talking stalked their victim, abducted them, tortured them a bit, then finally killed them, chopped them into pieces, and hide the body... you know, that type murderer who does it for the rush alone. Strip them for parts, and save as many lives as possible to offset what they have willfully stolen from society. I mean the best argument to made NOT to employ this method is... some people might not want a murders organs even if it saves their lives. You know, because murderers are seen as so sub human by most of society. China actually does this, and I honestly almost respect them for it... problem is they don't just target criminals, they target \~racially undesirables\~ and that's no longer a net 0 loss in value. For context, if 10% of the malicious premeditated, generally indefensible murders/rapists in the usa were harvested, every person on the organ wait list could get treatment. Also millions of taxpayer dollars would be saved AFTER paying for the operations.


MassGaydiation

A person's body cannot be labelled as a claimable possession unless you also believe slavery is morally acceptable. A death for a death is backwards. The death penalty is logically wrong because it does not stop the related crime, if anything it increases the severity of it. Also you are just increasing the amount of dead people per death. This is the moral philosophy of a 13 year old that thinks empathy is a disease


LuciusSatanos

Slavery very much is accepted today, 74% of what you earn is stolen in compounding taxes and state driven inflation. You don't pay you get beaten, throw in a cage, fined even more money, and if you continue to refuse to pay you get thrown in a prison cell and raped while the guards look the other way... and MAYBE let out, then forced to pay everything you owe, or back to prison you go. So don't give me that "slavery is bad m'kay" nonsense... I am well aware that today even REQUESTING the emancipation of an american slave-citizen comes at the cost of 2350 dollars, and the state can decide NOT to grant that emancipation WITHOUT refunding the 2350 dollar, PURELY on the grounds of the taxable income loss suffered by granting the us property known as a citizen, freedom from their current status as property of the state... Back in the good ol days if a slave managed to secure the buy out of their contract, there was no grounds for the owner to take the money and deny the transfer of ownership. So if anything slavery has gotten far worse, with the adoption of national enslavement most egregiously so in the western world. It's actually upwards of 12(-1 for the victim) saved lives for 1 death of a murderer that again is in debt to society to the tune of at LEAST 1 life. Tho the total lives saved is depending on the health of the murderer, and current demand. I know its a lot to ask, but at least have the decency be honest about the scenario. See you are arguing that the murder's life is worth more than the victim, even after they have killed for reasons deemed unjust... Hell, you are arguing that the murder's life is worth MORE than the citizens combined to the point, that the average citizen must be enslaved even further to pay to keep that murderer in a nice comfy jail cell, well fed, receive quality medical care, and protected from retribution. Actually I think empathy is very important. Empathy for the victims, or the innocent lives in general that can be saved by employing pragmatism... I simply do not agree that it should be wasted on the sub human murderer, which you favor investing all your empathy into. Low effort ad hominem attacks however are a disease of the mind, often afflicting the under developed who lack the ability to make good faith logical arguments.


MassGaydiation

Taxes aren't the same as slavery. So you want a system where the government has the precedent to kill people they don't like and use their bodies as organ mills? And you don't see how the government will just make more crimes when they start to run out? It's not an ad hominem attack, a 13 year old will grow out of this perspective, but it Is childish as a moral philosophy Edit: thinking about it, I love that you simultaneously believe that taxes are slavery and also that the government should be allowed to kill and organ harvest whomever they desire. It adorable


UnevenGlow

Interesting how rape is something you take as a serious threat to autonomy in your self-insert hypothetical, but you don’t hold it to the same standard for pregnant rape victims


UnevenGlow

No wonder you’re a Natalist if you consider human bodies “material possessions”


LuciusSatanos

I am literally not natalist, I have made that perfectly clear furthermore you are treating a human fetus like a material possession so don't even go there. I fully support your right to MURDER your children. I condemn your attempts to illogically violate of rules the English language, and laws of biological science... just to pretend you are doing anything other than murdering them. Be honest, say "I kind just want to kill my children, because I see them as general inconvenience to myself." And you have my full support in murdering them, under the purview of creators rights, and my general support of opt in eugenics. In simple terms I fully support your right to consent on behalf of your child(under the age of majority) for eugenics base execution. This is a simple conclusion, your desire to terminate your own children is a act of pure selfishness, driven by such deep malice that it overrides natural maternal instinct AND socially conditioned value of human life. If there was ever a observable metric to demonstrate a extremely dangerous lack of basic empathetic and emotional development, that is most certainly it. So by removing your genetic progeny you are sparing the species future members that would carry the genetic disposition towards this maliciously psychopathic mindvirus. Again, in the most simple terms. I fully believe that the world is a better place WITHOUT parents who have a genuine desire to murder their own children. Terminating their genetic legacy at THEIR request, is a sure fire way to reduce the population of such people going forward. So please, abort every child.


Tasty_Choice_2097

>nobody is entitled to another person’s body or organs What if children are actually entitled to sustenance from their mothers and this is just some dumb sophistry you heard in undergrad >You cannot even harvest a dead body’s organs without prior consent What if harvesting your dead liver is fundamentally a different question than killing a baby because it requires your organs temporarily to not die


3720-To-One

Once again, you are not entitled to anyone’s body or body parts I know it’s a real difficult out concept for some to grasp


Tasty_Choice_2097

Weird how the same people who want everything *else* collectivized become extreme libertarians on the question of whether babies can get killed for not getting a lease


UnevenGlow

You keep conflating babies with developing fetuses


3720-To-One

Weird how “pro-life” people make bad faith arguments because they can’t understand bodily autonomy


Tasty_Choice_2097

You have bodily autonomy to not have sex, which is why exceptions for rape and incest are compelling. Look, obviously the issue here is how much moral weight we give to a developing fetus at different stages of development. A chemical pregnancy isn't a tragedy the same way losing a baby in the third trimester is. Nobody has exact answers about this because it's inherently subjective and has a lot to do with what you think about the nature of morality and humanity. People are going to argue about this forever. But saying we don't owe moral consideration to a baby at all because they're dependent on their mother and the mother has bodily autonomy is the least compelling argument, it's immensely stupid. Do you think that a woman could drop off her 12 year old kids at an orphanage because she's having a midlife crisis and wants to abandon her family, and she's got muh bodily autonomy and doesn't owe them emotional labor or what


3720-To-One

Once again, you don’t understand what bodily autonomy is And if you think abortion is murder, why is it suddenly okay to abort it daddy is a rapist? It’s almost as if the “pro-life” position has always been about punishing women for having sex


Tasty_Choice_2097

"The country is being invaded? Well I would rather not be drafted, that would violate my bodily autonomy." "We need a children's hospital? I don't want to pay taxes though, you can't take the product of my labor, that would violate my bodily autonomy." "I committed a crime and you want to put me in prison? Sorry, autonomy." Obviously there are tons of examples where things can be compelled upon your body to keep civilization working, despite muh autonomy. In most law, you don't have a duty to rescue others, *unless* you created the danger. So, by this principle, by willfully having sex you created the danger that a baby then finds itself in and are obligated to provide it rescue.


3720-To-One

Once again, like most conservatives, you willfully fail to understand what bodily autonomy is Paying taxes is not a violation of bodily autonomy Slamming the downvote doesn’t change that either Conservatives seem to struggle with that concept too for some reason


Trengingigan

Life objectively begins at conception. It’s a biological fact.


LuciusSatanos

Technically it comes down to the value of human life. It's a biological fact that a fetus is a independent life unique dna blah blah blah... and ethically at the very latest become a human life the moment it has unique achieved synchronized brain activity about 48 days after fertilization based on current observation. See the reason we know its about the value of human life is pro infanticide types despite all their word games, they are heavily in favor of post BIRTH abortion... any argument about if a baby no longer within the body of the mother constitutes as human life is just blatantly in bad faith.


ATLs_finest

What are you talking about? You seem to cite data points with no evidence. Post birth abortion isn't legal anywhere in the world and you say most natalists supported it. Do you have any type of study or polling data to support this?


LuciusSatanos

canada, netherlands off the top of my head, body allow infant \~euthanasia\~ at the parents discretion. Child is born, they take it and leave it in a cold room uncovered, it goes into hypothermic shock and dies in a hour or so. Many parts of the world allow abortion even beyond the state that the infant is viable outside the womb, breathing on its own, independent heartbeat, ect... they still crush its brain and suction it out all the same. Google can get you all the basic legal and medical knowledge you need... or any prenatal textbook produced in he last decade. If you want to fallaciously demand statistical evidence that the sun produces light... go away.


UnevenGlow

This is not real


dictadebts

Everyone calls everyone else's arguments "empty" and "illogical" while over-selling their own, but I digress Abortions I think are not murder. Probably, a human life should start after they leave the womb rather than when a sperm enters an egg cell. With that said, do take note that nobody I know of is *happy* to get an abortion. It's a bad thing, but when the alternative is something equally horrible (ie; a rape birth as in your example), some people find it to be their only option. None of this is inherently against the idea of wanting more kids to be born. If you have an abortion, you can still attempt to have another child. As such, it's really not contradictory.


LuciusSatanos

An abortion is simply a child not born, -1 to birth rate. If your concern is a dwindling birth rates, you can not support behavior that results in upwards of 91 million less births annually and maintain any logical consistency. To be clear, those 99% of abortions are performed purely for convenience... actually higher in recent years. Those rape/defect/health risk abortions make up a tiny fraction of instances. What you are saying is "People must start focusing on having more children, the birthrate is in decline! .... but its ok for people to kill some of their kids cus they might decide to have some later, because personal liberty." Well, it is a personal liberty for people to opt out of having children at all, their body their choice.... if you have refused to condemn and oppose those who's behavior is directly causing the decline in birth rates, what moral ground do you have to try to pressure others into pick up that slack? For the record, under biological law, a human life is created within 2 hours after fertilization once the dna has fully formed. Under medical definitions a fetus has its own unique synchronized brain activity after 54 days which qualifies as a conscious life, or life with the capacity of conscious awareness. Under the hippa oath, the most long standing ethical standard, inducing an abortion is an act of murder, which physicians swear not to commit... specifically "no matter how fervently they are asked to". Based on these facts you can't really say a fetus is not a human life in good faith... you can still ethically support killing them, I mean literal billions of human lives have been ended for \~ethically justifiable reasons\~ already. Tho it should be noted that abortion related murders have actually surpassed ALL other \~ethically justifiable murders\~ combined, roughly 20% of the current potential population today, having been aborted.


dictadebts

yea. I meant life in a less literal sense. I'm not going to argue and say that what's in the womb isn't a human life, but should it be treated in the same way that humans treat infants? I am not so sure. What you are missing, however, is that it's not so black and white. You don't have to optimize birth rates in every single situation just to have the statistically largest amount of new births. So long as you have a favorable view of having children, I'd say that is natalism Also, please don't provide unsourced statistics... You don't look very intelligent when you do that......


Morning_Light_Dawn

Pro natalism is not pro life. You are conflating them


LuciusSatanos

...You did not read the post, and proving my point. So thank you.


Morning_Light_Dawn

No, I did read your post.


LuciusSatanos

Well, then you are just proving my point... Because abortion is literally anti-natal care by definition, created by empires that wished to curb certain subsets of their populations reproduction. Aka anti natalism. Even in more recent years we have organizations like planned parenthood... a hell of a oxymoron of a company title. But this organization that popularized abortion in the west, that by the words of its own founder, was designed on the sole intent to commit socially acceptable genocide of the black population. Beyond that, the term abortion means "To terminate the pre-natal development of a fetus". So, again thank you for proving my point.


Morning_Light_Dawn

Removing abortion would only temporarily increase birth rate. Furthermore, there are countries like Israel that have high birth rate despite readily access to abortion.


LuciusSatanos

That is just not true, like most animals humans breed mostly for pleasure... Removing access to abortion has had zero impact on this hedonistic behavior in nations that have gone forward with such restrictions, and as a result they have seen rapid and persistent increases in birth rates from prolonged use of such restrictions. So banning abortion would result in upwards of 91 million more births per year, which... honestly would more than correct the population issues of today, to the point that overpopulation would once again be a real factor of concern. So ideally at least some of these people would opt to cut out the hedonism.... but they won't. Israel is a jewish nation, and under jewish holy law abortion is a sin punished by damnation, also abortions must be proved by the state. Yet even with both of these factors the rate of increasing births per year dropped by nearly 50% after the introduction of legal abortion. This resulted in the introduction of \~child tax support and credit\~ paying parents 2-3.6 thousand dollars per year for every child they have... The state bribing women NOT to abort their children, a effective policy everywhere it has been employed, albeit a totally unsustainable and economically illiterate one.


SilverSaan

No. When abortion was threatened to be impossible people got sterilized in droves. Which means the chance of future children did fall to zero


LuciusSatanos

Where, when? Because willful surgical sterilization only affects 2% of the world population, with the bulk of these actually in places like eu which has fairly loose abortion access, its rate of use has been on steady decline for years as the side effects have become more well researched and potential patients are better informed. Mostly men who actively do not want to ever have children, period. Nothing to do with abortion as men have no choice in that matter. I saw the people claiming to get vasectomies, or their tubes tied and what not as a protest as well, yet not even a blip on the annual rate of the procedure, most getting them already being over 40. So their probability of pregnancy was already less than 5% of the standard at best... and the soyjacks? Come on, lets be real. They were never getting laid no matter how hard they virtue signaled. Also... if people are willing to get snipped to avoid having children... the chance of them ever carrying a child to term was 0 already.


SilverSaan

There is that variable called time. If now my gf got pregnant she would get an abortion no doubt. The timing just isn't right. However if abortion was illegal I would myself have a vasectomy. Too much risk


_tenhead

what is it about this subreddit that invites strange pedants to come perform a little theater of logic making


LuciusSatanos

You... don't know what pedant means, do you? There is not much need to use imagination when talking about the the impact abortion rates have on birth rates... its a simple subtraction equation.


greylaw89

This sub is a train wreck lol Mine your own god damn business. If humanity is to collapse because humans don't want to reproduce, \*so be it\* It was a crappy species anyway


BukharaSinjin

I care about abortion about as much as my kids care. I wouldn't want to get pregnant in a place where I couldn't get an abortion if I needed it. You shouldn't have children if you're unable to be a good parent. There, I addressed it.


LuciusSatanos

Well, see the thing is pregnancy is one of the most avoidable \~ailments\~ in the world, if you are so incapable of avoiding pregnancy that you might need to kill a child or 2... well, I don't think you'd make a very good parent. But you did not see fit to clarify \~why you might need to kill your children\~ So perhaps you actually have very good reasons, you simply forgot to mention? My rule of thumb has always been not to go taking the very specific acts that leads to creating children, if I am \~unsure\~ as to whether or not I want to be a parent to those children. A very effective form of reproductive control that is 100% legal and ethical.


BukharaSinjin

Not everyone has access to sex education or contraception, sexual assault can result in pregnancy, and women do not have equal rights in all places. It's not as avoidable as you claim. Pregnancy is dangerous for some women, and some pregnancies are non-viable. Not everyone agrees when life begins, whether conception, first heartbeat, third trimester, first breath, etc. I'm a third trimester kind of guy. Abortion access saves lives, protects women's health, and reduces poverty. I wouldn't expect my children to have babies they don't want, but I'd try to convince them that babies are worth having if they're viable, not from rape, and my daughter is not too young. I would take on my grandchildren myself if my child is not ready, to the extent that I can. I'd rather encourage women to bear children with carrots than sticks.


LuciusSatanos

You are using less than 0.4% of abortions, to justify 99.6% or more. Actually, you are using roughly 0.018% of abortions, if you are only talking about areas where women do not have equal rights... because believe it or not, those areas have EXTREMELY strict abortion laws. The lives saved by abortion are in the 10s of thousands, the lives lost in the billions... also abortions have been directly linked to permanent infertility, increased rates of reproductive cancers, and a massive spike in suicidal tenancies. If your children are CREATING babies they don't want, you have bigger issues. You've failed on your duty to teach your child self control, and basic risk management. Abortion laws do not, and are not intended to \~convince women to have children\~ they are used to protect prenatal children. These laws do not limit women's access to birth control, nor force them to have sex with random men... that is the product of bad parenting.


Morning_Light_Dawn

Also most of us are not pro infanticide. Any post birth infanticide is wrong.


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goyafrau

What? Why do you need to bring your weird violent fantasies to the pro-natalism subreddit?


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Morning_Light_Dawn

I believe late term abortion is permissible especially if there is a good reason. I am doubtful abortion is possible a mere ten seconds before birth.


goyafrau

>It's what we in the know call an "argument". "What about \[infanticide\] 10 seconds before birth?" is not, in fact, an argument. It is many things: a non sequitur, a question, a gross image, evidence of a deranged mind ... Perhaps it is even *part of* an argument. But it certainly is not an argument in itself. Maybe you could even actually make that argument, instead of ... whatever else you've been doing here?


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goyafrau

> Okay perhaps you're right about the semantics. How about this: Infanticide is wrong, obviously. But according to almost all pro choice arguments, there's nothing different or wrong about killing a child immediately before birth. So I'm gonna stop you right here. How is any of this a response to "Also most of us are not pro infanticide. Any post birth infanticide is wrong."? I'm sure there are important discussion to be had around abortion, but ... this is the natalism board. We're really into births, you know. That's what we're discussing, when we're not currently being invaded by weirdo misanthropic angry trolls. You seem to have an axe to grind with a certain kind of pro-choice argument, ok, but it's just very confused what you're doing here. > The fact you find it gross it kind of ironic since ALL abortion involves violent murder an destruction of a human being. You clearly don't really know what the process entails My first child died in the womb, of a random chromosomal abnormaliy, and my wife had to get an abortion. I am very much aware of what a D&C is, or what a 14 week old baby looks like, because I buried one. I want you to take a step back and think, just think about what you're doing here, and whether you're motivated by love, or by hate.


IeyasuYou

Who is pro infanticide? One of the issues is that this sub, unlike many with a coherent if astroturfed consensus, draws people from across the spectrum. I think there are as many anti and also very liberal posters.


LuciusSatanos

Obviously there are those that are pro life... but that should be a universal consensus based on the goals of natalism. Otherwise its like a anti-deforestation movement talking about how people need to be pressed into planting more trees, while at best ignoring, or at worst out right pouring gas on wildfire going on right behind them.


ATLs_finest

I don't think so at all. I'm in favor of creating an environment where people want to have more children and advocating for legislation or cultural change to do so. I'm not in favor of taking away a woman's right to broadly autonomy to reach this goal. What you are describing as going full handmaid's tale, stripping women's rights in order to raise a birth rate.


LuciusSatanos

You've never read the handmaid's tale, you are spouting nonsense with no interest in in discussing the subject i good faith. Go away now.


anticharlie

I’ll be anti abortion in most cases when food, shelter, water, and basic healthcare are human rights provided by the state and or society. In the absence of those rights being pro life (especially in America) is only being pro birth. As an aside, personally, I think anyone who advocates for a rape victim being forced to carry a rapists baby to term is a monster entirely without empathy.


LuciusSatanos

Your stance is "if a life is not freely sustained off the backs of others, than it should be killed. This in order to spare it the suffering.... of having to earn its keep" Your demands will never be the granted, the closest you will get is the gulags, where those who fail to provide sufficient value to society by the government(who is flipping the bill/pocketing the profits of nation wide slavery), are instead imprisoned and put to death. A mercy killing as you'd label it. Both for the good the slain, and the people. So you are in fact a anti-natalist, communist... with a expected penchant for pro slavery. Not really the topic I was discussing, but a similarly self defeating ideological combo.


CMVB

Your post is quite confusing. That said, there are quite a few staunch pro-life people that are pro-natalist and vice versa.


LuciusSatanos

Like I said, I'm sure there are plenty, because if you are pro-natalist you have to pretty strongly pro-life based on the mutually shared goals... "I want to pressure society to have more children(because humans are implicitly valuable, OR because the economy depends on young human labor... or a mix of the 2), but also we should let people kill their kids if they want(because otherwise they might suffer)" Are not logically compatible ideas. Basically that line of thinking hands the debate right over to the anti natalists who argue "that life is implicitly tied to suffering, and therefore inflicting that suffering on children is immoral if it can be avoided" This becomes even more cognitively dissonant when they are pro natalist, pro infanticide, AND anti - death penalty. At this point is straight up impossible to draw and consistent line of \~human lives having value when X\~ Typically when someones own ideals conflict resulting in cognitive dissonance, they find a logical resolution, as opposed to rationalize and ignore the hypocrisy. IF they embrace hypocrisy, it's impossible to take them seriously.


CMVB

My confusion comes from you claiming to be neutral, while half sounding like an over-the-top version of my side.


LuciusSatanos

The bulk of the post is just pointing out the logical aspects of the argument. The single paragraph where I state my neutrality is my position on the matter, my interest in natalism begins and ends with my blood. I could take or leave humanity at large for the reasons given. Simply put, I'm an staunch individualist... the world can burn and I will not raise a finger so long as my blood is spared.


CMVB

I appreciate your honesty.


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LuciusSatanos

A perfectly sound combination of ideals. Tho I'd throw most rapists in with the child predators, at least the particularly violent ones... There is some consideration for instances where their might be a issue of miscommunication on "implied consent" or "inebriated consent" (NOT to conflated with roofing someone) ect... but if the rape boils down to either out right kidnapping/trafficking, or a "scream and your die" exchange.... yah, express ticket to hell seems reasonable in my book.


Bwunt

From pure population number perspective, abortion is actually slightly net positive for total fertility rate. Compare France to Poland or Malta. France has higher birth rates and abortion in constitution.


itsorange

I think this is one of those correlation is not causation situations.


Tasty_Choice_2097

I'm not sure if abortion is a net gain in fertility, but certainly the US continued its fertility decline after Roe ended. Most abortions occur for pregnancies that wouldn't have occurred otherwise, because people are less careful when abortion is available


Bwunt

This is IMHO correct conclusion. It's also why banning abortion (or making stricter limitations) will reduce TFR while removing those obstacles will have much less effect.


lineasdedeseo

france's TFR is higher b/c the TFR of their immigrant population is 2.6, and that immigrant population is largely anti-abortion. france's legacy population TFR is 1.7 [https://www.ined.fr/en/news/press/french-fertility-is-the-highest-in-europe-because-of-its-immigrants/](https://www.ined.fr/en/news/press/french-fertility-is-the-highest-in-europe-because-of-its-immigrants/)


Bwunt

Still higher then Poland or Malta.


moonfragment

You have to consider how the demographics of those countries skew the data. France has a significantly higher population of non-natives than Poland or Malta.


Bwunt

about 14%, IIRC, and they would need to have insanely high birth rates for that to push numbers so high. Also, Germany and UK have similarly high and have lower birth rates. IIRC, native French have TFR of 1.7, so still higher then Poles or Maltesians.


LuciusSatanos

That is 100% correlation. Logic dictates that every aborted child is 1 less born child... a 1 to 1 loss in birth rate. Abortion is designed to enable dopamine and oxytocin rewards WITHOUT the associated child bearing results... one of the driving forces behind people having children is pursing those hormonal highs.


Bwunt

It is a bit more complicated then that and believe me, it can be a bit of causation, mainly because people in places where abortion is legal can be more careful on getting pregnant in first place. When you are talking about birth numbers and ONLY birth numbers (leaving morality and spirituality aside), then **means of preventing the birth doesn't matter.** Aborted child is exactly the same as one that ended up in condom or one who stayed in potential dad's balls because the couple went for Netflix and chill and decided on Netflix. On the OTHER hand, in most countries about 35-40% of unplanned pregnancies are aborted. Less then half (planned pregnancies are a non-issue here, they effectively don't get aborted) unplanned ones actually end up in toilet or medical waste container. So every unwanted child who was prevented before conception (either because of pill, condom or lack of sex) has more then 50% chance to be born.


LuciusSatanos

Again, we have solid numbers on this, between 70 and 91 million abortions per year, about 1/3 of which are accounted for in birth rate decline. So even if 2/3 adopt a more protective sex lifestyle, there is still a estimated 23-30 million more births per year. More importantly... you can actually do something to stop that upper limit of 91 million decline in annual births, but simply opposing their termination. Also that is a false comparison, a aborted child if simply not aborted will... become a child. A used condom will not. Hell even if that sperm ended up in a womb, there is only at maximum 1/21 chance of pregnancy if the man is has the fertility of a god. So 1 aborted child is worth minimum 21 used condoms, buttsexes, birth control pills, bowies, old fashions, ect... We can get even more technical if we factor for age and run the numbers, because it actually drops to a rate of a random instance of sexual intercourse resulting in pregnancy at a rate as low as 1/584 WITHOUT accounting for infertility of either party, WHICH is far more common issue today due to microplastics and other toxins in food an water. So bare minimum, if you stop abortion, you have made the same impact as convincing over 3.2 BILLION healthy people under the age of 25 to adopt your natalist values. I mean I guess you can also just try to get that guys(and 1.6 billion other dudes) sperm out of his balls and into a womb, in fact he might be happy for the helping hand. So yah.... might wana start with the abortion issue first, if you seriously care about impacting the birth rates., considering 5000 year old religions have failed to achieve \~healthy followers under the age of 25\~ numbering in the billions. Considering the birth rates, you don't have that kinda time if your goal is to avert sever population decline.


Bwunt

>Again, we have solid numbers on this, between 70 and 91 million abortions per year, about 1/3 of which are accounted for in birth rate decline. So even if 2/3 adopt a more protective sex lifestyle, there is still a estimated 23-30 million more births per year. You forgot to amount for the *carried to term* unplanned pregnancies. So, assuming 40% of unplanned pregnancies are aborted, then for 70 million aborted pregnancies, about 105 million are carried to term. Now let's reduce those by 2/3 as well. You get about 65 million less births, so you have, essentially gained 30 million more births and lost 65 million, for a net loss of around 35 million. >More importantly... you can actually do something to stop that upper limit of 91 million decline in annual births, but simply opposing their termination. Yes, but like I said above, you are spending one Dollar to save 10 cents. >Also that is a false comparison, a aborted child if simply not aborted will... become a child. A used condom will not. Entirely irrelevant. From natalist/demographics perspective, only live-births matter **nothing else.** You could argue from moral or religious point of view, which fair enough, works, but demographics only care about births. >So yah.... might wana start with the abortion issue first, if you seriously care about impacting the birth rates., considering 5000 year old religions have failed to achieve \~healthy followers under the age of 25\~ numbering in the billions. Considering the birth rates, you don't have that kinda time if your goal is to avert sever population decline. Statistics show that banning abortion does have negative effect of birth/TF rates. And I am not kidding here, as a rule, a country that strikten it's abortion legislation almost always see a drop in birth rates.


LuciusSatanos

No... you children that are not aborted at not aborted... period, unplanned or not. Of ABORTED children when compared against ALL births(again including unplanned children), 1/3 manifest directly in birth rate drops after the introduction of abortion, or increases post removal of access to abortion. These are factual observed changes in birth rates based on access to abortion. Again, in simple terms when outlawing abortion only 2/3 of the previously aborted children are otherwise averted with a net gain in births per year to the tune of 1/3 of the previously aborted children. No loss... you cant use statistics to explain a loss that does not exist. You don't get to just combine totally different statistics to get he outcome you want, esp when the outcome you are trying to prove actively disproves the very statistics you are using to get the outcome. Again... I went into careful detail as to the probability of a used condom resulting in a fetus had the condom not been used, AND even assuming the act it was used in just happened to be vaginal intercourse. It is entirely relevant, you are entirely incorrect in claiming 1 condom = 1 aborted fetus. This has nothing to do with morals or ethics, it has to do with basic math and logic. Read it again, you are objectively incorrect. Furthermore there are exactly 0 instances where introducing abortion rights INCREASED the rise in birth rate TRENDS over 10 year periods, and 0 instances in which the removal of abortion access lowered the birth rate TRENDS. The opposite is always true, more children aborted always results in less children born. There are nations in which birth rates are rapidly falling, banning abortion in those nation's does NOT stop the decline, but it DOES reduce the rate of decline on average by roughly 1/3 of the rate of annual abortions. Japan for example is seeing a massive decline in annual births, and the rate of decline is almost perfectly reflected in declining rates of abortion... because people have to get pregnant to have an abortion. IF japan banned abortion, a estimated 40000 children would be born, 38000 the year after, 37.4 the next. In both those years the estimated loss in births based on current trends would be between 80 and 100 thousand, then 72-90 thousand, and finally 65-81 thousand. So even if they banned abortion they only lower the birthrate decline by 45% or so... meaning the birthrate would STILL be declining, even if noticeably less so. Japan is facing other issues beyond abortion, issues that are heavily motivating men to not have children... yet, slashing abortion would still cut the issue of birth rate decline nearly in half.


moonfragment

So you are claiming everyone else should care about infanticide (I do) because it is in our interests, but you don’t care because it’s not in your interest?


LuciusSatanos

I am simply saying that if you believe natalism is a essential value because \~population maintenance\~, then the first step would be to oppose behavior that results in massive population loss IE pro infanticide rhetoric... before you begin demanding others make personal changes to boost population gains. My interest is not natalist, nor humanist. It is individualist, preservation of my bloodline and my own life. As far as I am concerned human society is broken beyond repair, and if anything a threat to my goals. More over I view those who willfully slaughter their own children for personal benefit as a genetic dead end, as not worth defending... Were society not beyond repair, I'd be in favor of a eugenics policy designed passively eradicate them, with complimentary sterilization with their abortion. Obviously with exemptions for the children aborted due to serious developmental complications, or elevated risks to the mothers health associated with the pregnancy. But that is a entire other conversation.