Hellrider
I did respond to the medical considerations. Furthermore, unlike you, I did not only respond to the medical considerations, I also put them in an ethical perspective
The "ethical perspective" you present is only present because you ignore the medical perspective, ignoring is not responding, mentioning something in passing and then going straight back to your original and unproven argument is not responding;
Yes, medical considerations are of course part of this issue, but that doesn`t mean that this issue is, was and always will first and foremost an ethical issue.
It's your circular argument of equivalence again, that any fetus = born human, constantly repeated, never proven.
Without this being proven there is not an ethical perspective.
It's like someone saying 'animals are equal to humans, therefore the treatment of animals must meet the same standards of ethics as the treatment of humans', and then expecting all farm animals to be liberated. They have never proven animals are equal to humans, but that doesn't stop them expecting their opinions to be acted on as if they had proven something.
You say;
You claim that all the basic development of the featus (development of neural tissue, brains etc) is basically finnished at 20 weeks into the pregnancy, and that after week 20, the primary activity of the fetus is to grow. Still, you insist that it is ethically responsible to perform abortions up until week 16 (or week 20 ??), but not in the weeks 20-40. And....???? Why? If nothing neurolgically important happens after week 20 (just growth), then there is no logical reason why abortions shouldn`t happen between week 20 and 40, if there is no difference of significance in the neurological status of the fetus in week 19, and in week 38. Does something “magical” happen between week 16 and 20, is that what you are saying? ;
My argument is that as neural compexity is not sufficient to give any real equivalence to a new born in early-term pregnancies, to such an extent that major 'wiring' in the brains that allows pain to be perceived and phisiologically responded to does not take place until just after week 20, around week 20 is a good limit for social abortions.
To say what you said you either did not understand what I said or cited, or did not have the common courtesy to read what I wrote or cited. I don't think you're deliberately distorting what I said or I wouldn't bother replying to you again.
You say you answer the question "In terms of violation of bodily rights and freewill, what is the difference [between forced pregnacy and rape]?" You do no such thing, you just repeat your curcular argument;
However, the point here is that different ethical principles collide !
You're assuming different ethical principles collide based upon your assumption of equivalence, which as we know is merely a repeated claim, not a proven fact.
I am right about law usually being based on ethical considerations.
you should update yourself on the almost inseparable nature of law and ethics (I think you understood this, at least from what I wrote before the quotes).
I've never said ethics weren't involved in the making of law; please stop using strawman arguments.
You did however fail miserably to prove the role of emotions in law, as I thought you would; linguistically, are ethics and emotion synonyms in Norwegian? They aren't in English. Maybe that explains the 'misunderstanding'.
Like I said, ethics is constrained by logic. Emotions aren't. And your insistance of the involvement of ethics in the above example is only possible due to your insistance it is, not because of a rational demonstration of equivalence between a 12 week-old fetus and a new born.
It really is simple;
- If under law there was proof an early-term fetus was equivalent to a new born, then killing such a fetus would be a crime for the same reasons as killing is normally a crime. Ethics would apply. There is no such proof, ethical considerations do not apply to a early-term fetus as they do to a new born..
- If under law there was proof a cow was equivalent to a human being, then killing a cow would be a crime for the same reasons as killing is normally a crime. Ethics would apply. There is no such proof, ethical considerations do not apply to a cow as they do to a human.
- If under law there was proof an early-term fetus could suffer, then making such a fetus suffer would be a crime for the same reasons as deliberately causing suffering is normally a crime. Ethics would apply. There is no such proof, ethical considerations do not apply to a early-term fetus as they do to a new born..
- If under law there was proof that cows can suffer, then making cows suffer would be a crime for the same reasons as deliberately causing suffering is normally a crime. Ethics would apply. There is such proof, ethical considerations do apply to a cow as they do to a human.in this respect, and causing unneccesary suffering to a cow is against the law.
You create an ethical quagmire where there is none (as is recognised by the law in most Western countries) purely on the basis of your emotions about the issue.
At the same time you would gladly impose your will on others... something that is recognised as being AGAINST the law in most Western countries? Where does ethics come into that?
As for a further thread, well, you can start threads about whatever subject you like. I don't know if I'd find further discussion of any interest if it involved further repetition or a protagonist who will say things like "there is no logical reason why abortions shouldn`t happen between week 20 and 40" when, if they'd been following the discussion carefully, they'd of realised that this is a total misrepresetation of what has been said and ignores citions of hard scientific data in the thread.
Harsh but fair, sad but true.
