In the ideal of all ideals, I'd prefer the question of abortion's legality to be settled by women only. But, I'm not sure how you'd implement that. — Moliere

That's another statement that I find particularly disagreeable on sexist grounds. Our ideals are clearly opposed in certain respects. The thought that all of my views on this important topic, of which I'm passionate, and with which I have made an effort to be reasonable and conscientious, which effect the whole of society - not just women - would be discounted solely on the basis of my gender... that is a thought that I find highly objectionable. — Sapientia

Moliere could be saying that only those who get pregnant ought to be empowered to decide whether or not to have an abortion, which seems pretty reasonable to me. To say that women should have the same bodily autonomy as men is precisely anti-sexist.

I think I'm with Moliere on guns too, though I'm undecided.

These issues depend on empirical evidence for me. We have evidence that strictly limiting or outright forbidding the private use of arms results in drastically lower rates of mass shootings and homicides. Look at the UK, Japan, and Australia, for example.

In the case of drugs, the opposite is true. We find that decriminalizing drugs results in less addictions, homicides, etc. See Portugal and other European countries for evidence of this, for example.

So for me, I have no principled reasons why we ought to uphold the second amendment or why marijuana, cocaine, etc ought to remain illegal. If I did, I would maintain such principles directly in opposition to the facts at hand.

In the ideal of all ideals, I'd prefer the question of abortion's legality to be settled by women only. But, I'm not sure how you'd implement that. — Moliere

This doesn't follow. Your prior position was that the pregnant woman alone had the right to choose abortion at any time because it was her body. If that is your position, it makes no more sense to allow a man or another woman to decide what that woman gets to do with her own body. Women don't have a special sisterhood where one gets decide what to do with another's body. If a 15 year old girl is pregnant, you believe Sarah Palin should be given greater rights to decide what she ought to do over Bernie Sanders?

Suppose some women believe that men ought to weigh in on the issue, does the authority they have as women encompass the power to delegate that power to men?

Either you want to make every case subjective where the pregnant woman herself gets to weigh her life circumstances and emotions and decide or you create some objective criteria that you apply across the board. If you're going to look for some objective criteria that allows limitations on abortions, women are no better objective evaluators than men regarding what criteria ought to be used. It's not as if every woman has been pregnant or can be pregnant, and it's not as if no man has any understanding of what human life is.

And, of course, arguing that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue somewhat defeats any argument you've presented here regarding abortion, your being male and all.

And there was much gnashing of teeth...

The similarity between yours and the Catholic position is more in the above than the exact placement of the line. As far as I'm concerned your placement of the line is the same as defending zygotes -- but Catholics will say that zygotes are persons, and so they will say most of what you say in regards to those who disagree with them. — Moliere

Personhood in so far as it relates to abortion is a heap problem. To the Catholic church one grain of sand is a heap. To the super late abortionist 1 million grains of sand minus 1 is no longer a heap. You are both obviously wrong for obvious reasons.

Moliere could be saying that only those who get pregnant ought to be empowered to decide whether or not to have an abortion, which seems pretty reasonable to me. To say that women should have the same bodily autonomy as men is precisely anti-sexist. — jamalrob

That isn't what he said, although it's possible that that was what he meant. That's a different issue.

I don't think that it's reasonable unconditionally. Like I said, I'm in favour of laws along the lines of the current English laws.

Men don't get pregnant. So it doesn't make sense to apply the same standard in terms of bodily autonomy. And people have children - not just women. So it does make sense not to exclude them from the question of abortion's legality. And in any case, I think that gender is not so relevant in the latter case. What matters is that the right decision is reached, not so much how it's reached, although I suppose a gender-balanced approach would be fair and sensible.

I think I'm with Moliere on guns too, though I'm undecided. — jamalrob

I'm not entirely against him, but I err on the side of caution. I want a workable middle ground.

for a woman's right to choose what to do with her body, which includes the fetus. — jamalrob

The woman's body does not include the fetus. It contains the fetus.The fetus is also a body. It has all the basic physical characteristics of a body and at 8 1/2 months is virtually indistinguishable from a new born's body. It being inside the mother and dependent on the mother does not negate that fact. In fact, if it weren't for the placental barrier the mother's body would reject the foreign fetal body. In other words the fetus is obviously not a body part, which it would need to be to give your argument force. Given that there is no general right to do what we want with our bodies if that involves harming others' bodies, there is no justification for allowing women to harm fetuses simply because their bodies contain them.

It's a matter of debate, not of inarguable empirical facts as you keep implying. I do consider the woman's body to include the fetus, and I do not consider that fetus to be a person. Hence I believe the woman's bodily autonomy comes first.

So you would say a pregnant woman has two brains, four arms and four legs right?

Don't be silly.

That's the consequence of you saying the baby is part of the pregnant woman's body.

From your rather pedantic and obtuse perspective, I can see that.

You can call it what you like but it matters if that's the basis of your argument. Another consequence is that the about-to-be-born baby doesn't have a body of its own, which makes one wonder what the mother pushes out of hers.

You can call it what you like but it matters if that's the basis of your argument. — Baden

I am not going to spell things out for you. As I said, what you claim follows from my position only does so given a number of other premises, and I refuse to believe you don't have the imagination to see that, even to see what my own assumptions are. What is a body? What do we mean when we talk of a woman's body, and is this like talking about a fetus's body, or somewhat different? When I talk of the woman's body I am talking about the body of a person. Etc.

Of course, we could argue all day just over personhood and bodyhood etc. and it ends up being more philosophical blather. I made much that point before. But that's all you've got on your side. To me above and beyond all that the more salient point is that your position would allow a woman to inflict grievious harm, pain, distress and/or death on a human being that is physically virtually indistinguishable from a new born child.

Once again, all you're doing is throwing your opinions at me. You haven't offered any criticism of my position that is not simply saying you disagree. And as far as I can understand your thought experiment, my position would not allow any such thing.

I agree that it is a heap problem. Perhaps we have some common ground, there.

What I would question on your part is the obviousness of your own beliefs. I can respect the Catholic position because it is consistent. It's a bit a-historical, if we take Aquinas as a measure, but hey, institutions change with political realities, even religious ones. Their position is still consistent, and I understand it, though I disagree with it.

I've also lain out my position, on the other side. I insist that it is consistent, philosophically arrived at, and not absurd. It is rational. That doesn't mean it is singular. But it is rational.

I don't think you, or others, can get away with hand-waving on this particular point while also rejecting people who have put an answer forth. You may reject us, but I think then it is on you to provide a justification.

And we are all dealing with the same heap problem. But, rather than debating whether this or that is in fact a heap of sand, our answer has consequences.

How do you answer? That I know. But why do you answer it? What is your justification?

Right, that's what I'm getting at. While simultaneously recognizing that there are pragmatic difficulties in encoding that into law.

Yeah, there's a tricky distinction here, which I think @Hanover brings out quite well in his last post.

This doesn't follow. Your prior position was that the pregnant woman alone had the right to choose abortion at any time because it was her body. If that is your position, it makes no more sense to allow a man or another woman to decide what that woman gets to do with her own body. Women don't have a special sisterhood where one gets decide what to do with another's body. If a 15 year old girl is pregnant, you believe Sarah Palin should be given greater rights to decide what she ought to do over Bernie Sanders? — Hanover

Only in an ideal sense. I recognize the difficulties in real life of implementing something like that. But, in general, I believe that those who are effected/affected by policy should be the ones who have say -- and abortion policy is one of those that clearly effects/affects women more than men.

In particular, non-ideal terms, my answer is that the woman alone should decide.

Suppose some women believe that men ought to weigh in on the issue, does the authority they have as women encompass the power to delegate that power to men? — Hanover

Not in my ideal of all ideals. I'd separate out the particular decision about abortion from the general decision about policy which regulates abortion.

Either you want to make every case subjective where the pregnant woman herself gets to weigh her life circumstances and emotions and decide or you create some objective criteria that you apply across the board. If you're going to look for some objective criteria that allows limitations on abortions, women are no better objective evaluators than men regarding what criteria ought to be used. It's not as if every woman has been pregnant or can be pregnant, and it's not as if no man has any understanding of what human life is.

In practical terms I think that every case is subjective.

In ideal terms, I think that objective policy should be set by women.

And, of course, arguing that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue somewhat defeats any argument you've presented here regarding abortion, your being male and all.

I don't believe that only women can meaningfully debate the abortion issue. I'm stating that in an ideal sense I think that policy should be set by women.

My understanding of your basic position is that a woman has a right to do with her body what she pleases, and that because the fetus is part of her body she has a right to do with the fetus what she pleases with regards to abortion. Is that correct?

That seems about right as far as it goes.

EDIT: Though I see no relevant difference between include and contain in this context.

My major problem with your position is not that it's not rational. My problem with your position is that it's undesirable due to the consequences.

OK and would you consider any limits on the form of abortion a woman might wish to undertake?

Doesn't that implicitly assume your belief about when a fetus gets rights and is a person, though? Shouldn't you have to justify that, as both Catholics and I have done?

It's not relevant to my concerns. Abortion is or should be an ordinary medical procedure carried out by medical professionals. What are you getting at? Are you going to hit me with a gruesome thought experiment here because I really wish you wouldn't.

Not necessarily. I don't believe in torturing animals, for example, and they're not people and should have some rights. We know fetuses feel pain. We know fetuses are human. The next step concerning personhood is unlikely to be settled but the first two facts are enough to make the consequences of harming fetuses (without some concomitant benefit to another human on the other side such as saving the life of a mother) undesirable.

I'm just trying to tease out your position. There are women who commit abortions on themselves without medical help. That's a reality, not just a thought experiment. If your argument is based on the idea that these women may do what they please with their bodies with regard to abortion because they are dealing exclusively with their own bodies, then it seems you shouldn't object to them terminating their own pregnancies as long as they don't harm themselves (or maybe even if they do if they consider it worth the price) irregardless of the harm they do or the pain they inflict on the fetus.

So, you think that abortion policy should only be set by women because abortion policy is one of those that clearly effects/affects women more than men? Yet, if we turn the tables, isn't that what feminists frequently object to? The male domination over issues which also effect/affect women? I wonder how they'd feel about the prospect of being excluded on such a basis.

I'm not sure. The attitude I have to terminating your own pregancy is a bit like my attitude to doing your own brain surgery---but I don't want women to be penalized for self-termination. I think bodily autonomy would again have to be the priority, but I probably wouldn't be making my argument if I didn't also think it would result in a better system in which the removal of stigma and official interference reduced the number of self-terminations.

My major problem with your position is not that it's not rational. My problem with your position is that it's undesirable due to the consequences. — Baden

Similarly, my main problem with your position, @Moliere, isn't about internal consistency and rationality. My earlier charge of absurdity was in relation to the consequences, and to that which is external to your position, e.g. values or priorities which you might not share.