Thank you both on this, good read and response. I especially found the Malawi framing novel and never thought about it that way. And I'm not even a secular pro-lifer, in fact I'm a legamoron spiteful pro-choicer to the point I'm legally ok with abortion up until the seventy-first trimester though morally I'm a religious pro-lifer.
Re: embryos and “artificial wombs”. I would agree that embryo preservation would be much more compelling in an era of functional artificial wombs. In fact, imo there would be no further need for abortion per se. Unwanted pregnancies can simply be transferred to such “wombs”, and the state can do whatever it sees fit with these future babies (ie either way, no longer the pregnant woman’s problem).
But since such artificial wombs aren’t currently an option, that argument against Caplan’s hypothetical treatment of embryos (and by extension, the argument against abortion) has no bearing on today’s reality.
Re: Turnaway study: I wonder if the results would be different for women who obtained their abortions long before the peri-cutoff time frame. I’m also not sure how prevalent or accessible mifepristone was during the study timeframe.
I don't agree with that, it's the same false point-of-viability argument many pro-abortionist make. Morality isn't based on the technical capacity of the moment IMHO. One can make other moral arguments around abortion but not that one as intent is what matters morally speaking.
My position on abortion is entirely based on viability.
When the only living being in the universe who can sustain a fetus (ie not even anyone’s “god” can contribute diddly squat) is the woman (ie prior to the point of viability), I’m 100% her body her choice. Why should the state be able to obligate a woman to be a fetal incubator when it can’t do the job itself? That’s why I’m fine with abortion on demand up to the point of viability.
But this changes if you have an “artificial womb”. Now the state can take over the job from day 1. In such a reality, there really would be no need to ”abort”….any woman who doesn’t want to be a fetal incubator can simply transfer said fetus to said incubator, and walk away. It does imply that “the state” assumes all responsibility for the fetus, financial and otherwise, thereafter.
I take a more techno-futurist view: At some point, we will have artificial womb technology. Removing the “results of conception” for indefinite preservation and later incubation will be a relatively frivolous and inexpensive task.
Within a few generations of living with this technology, all other things being equal, the most likely outcome is that people will regard abortion as a barbaric, misguided, and currently-unnecessary-except-in-emergencies practice, the same way as we view leeching and trepanation.
That latter analogy IMO is particularly informative: trepanation is still *done* today in some situations where it can relieve cranial pressure. We just do it for scientifically based reasons, not ones founded in old ignorance like “humors” theory.
The percentage of frozen embryos who end up being born is on the order of one in 10. It still seems monstrous to choose a box of 500 embryos over one child.
That's just a variant of the trolley problem where the trolley doesn't have a 100% fatality rate AND it's riders are centenarian invalids with stage 4 cancer. The secular abortion argument has always fundamentally been, in modern times, when does a river become the ocean in a world of oceanphile ocean supremacists because water is irrelevant.
Thank you both on this, good read and response. I especially found the Malawi framing novel and never thought about it that way. And I'm not even a secular pro-lifer, in fact I'm a legamoron spiteful pro-choicer to the point I'm legally ok with abortion up until the seventy-first trimester though morally I'm a religious pro-lifer.
Re: embryos and “artificial wombs”. I would agree that embryo preservation would be much more compelling in an era of functional artificial wombs. In fact, imo there would be no further need for abortion per se. Unwanted pregnancies can simply be transferred to such “wombs”, and the state can do whatever it sees fit with these future babies (ie either way, no longer the pregnant woman’s problem).
But since such artificial wombs aren’t currently an option, that argument against Caplan’s hypothetical treatment of embryos (and by extension, the argument against abortion) has no bearing on today’s reality.
Re: Turnaway study: I wonder if the results would be different for women who obtained their abortions long before the peri-cutoff time frame. I’m also not sure how prevalent or accessible mifepristone was during the study timeframe.
I don't agree with that, it's the same false point-of-viability argument many pro-abortionist make. Morality isn't based on the technical capacity of the moment IMHO. One can make other moral arguments around abortion but not that one as intent is what matters morally speaking.
My position on abortion is entirely based on viability.
When the only living being in the universe who can sustain a fetus (ie not even anyone’s “god” can contribute diddly squat) is the woman (ie prior to the point of viability), I’m 100% her body her choice. Why should the state be able to obligate a woman to be a fetal incubator when it can’t do the job itself? That’s why I’m fine with abortion on demand up to the point of viability.
But this changes if you have an “artificial womb”. Now the state can take over the job from day 1. In such a reality, there really would be no need to ”abort”….any woman who doesn’t want to be a fetal incubator can simply transfer said fetus to said incubator, and walk away. It does imply that “the state” assumes all responsibility for the fetus, financial and otherwise, thereafter.
I take a more techno-futurist view: At some point, we will have artificial womb technology. Removing the “results of conception” for indefinite preservation and later incubation will be a relatively frivolous and inexpensive task.
Within a few generations of living with this technology, all other things being equal, the most likely outcome is that people will regard abortion as a barbaric, misguided, and currently-unnecessary-except-in-emergencies practice, the same way as we view leeching and trepanation.
That latter analogy IMO is particularly informative: trepanation is still *done* today in some situations where it can relieve cranial pressure. We just do it for scientifically based reasons, not ones founded in old ignorance like “humors” theory.
The percentage of frozen embryos who end up being born is on the order of one in 10. It still seems monstrous to choose a box of 500 embryos over one child.
That's just a variant of the trolley problem where the trolley doesn't have a 100% fatality rate AND it's riders are centenarian invalids with stage 4 cancer. The secular abortion argument has always fundamentally been, in modern times, when does a river become the ocean in a world of oceanphile ocean supremacists because water is irrelevant.