Not really what your criteria is being that I’m a pro life libertarian as far as ideals I align with most on what you’re looking for.
Even though I am religious, my argument against abortion is firstly a scientific one then on moral principal second. On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception. On the moral side it’s that I believe all humans deserve human rights no matter at what stage of development there are. Just as soon as you make exceptions to kill for one type or subset of humankind you open the door to others. Usually this is done by labeling a certain group as not human to justify oppression of said group. Terms usually used to justify acts of violence against other humans are property, subhuman, animals, savages, clump of cells, parasite, etc. Usually for libertarians it boils down to having a code called the non-aggression principal which is essentially don’t fuck with other people. This is also why I’m anti capital punishment.
I hope that helps. Also, good luck at your family get togethers, lol. It feels like you’re looking for ammunition for debates.
I won’t mention the rest of the text because I’m not interested enough on the discussion to do so. I’ll focus on a single thing.
On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception.
What should be considered a human being or not is prescriptive in nature, because it involves ethics. Science - i.e. the scientific method - does not give a shit to prescriptive matters; science is descriptive, it’s worried about what happens/doesn’t happen. For science it doesn’t really matter if you call it a human, a tissue, a wug or a colourless green thing sleeping furiously, as long as you’re unambiguously and accurately describing the phenomenon being studied.
As such, no, science itself doesn’t really tell you “when it becomes a human being”.
The only thing that it “proves” is that the author (not “science”) is referring to foetuses (from nine weeks after conception [not zero] to 16 weeks) as “children”. And it certainly does not back up your claim that [ipsis litteris] “On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception.”
And no, “The growth and development are positively influenced by factors, like parental health and genetic composition, even before conception.” does not prove it either, given that the author is solely mentioning conception as a time of reference.
Sorry to be blunt but the way that you referred to science sounds a lot like “I’m ignorant on science but I want to leech off its prestige for the sake of my argument”. If you don’t want to do this, here’s a better approach:
Show how certain actions generate certain outcomes. Science will help you with this.
Explicit the moral and ethical premises that you are using, to judge said outcomes as good/bad. Science will not help you with this.
It’s also a nice way to avoid a fallacy/stupidity called appeal to nature (TL;DR: “[event/thing] is natural, so it’s good lol lmao”), that often plagues discussions about moral matters like abortion.
I think the responses from the conservatives in this thread have demonstrated what I’d expected, and hopefully what OP was looking for: abandonment of Christian dogma does not always result in abandonment of dogmatic values.
People who are happy to declare that the definition of something like science is anything other than what the vast majority of those accredited in scientific fields consider it to be are just as dishonest as hard-line Christians, and will vote against their own interests just as readily.
I like how you call out some terms used to dehumanization. Fetus, baby, and child also fit into that bucket imo.
So ,to clarify, you want the government to restrict and punish abortion? I thought libertarians were for less government.
Why should the government have a monopoly on violence and force in this case? Instead shouldn’t the enforcement of moral law like the NAP be up to their peers or free market hired private contractors?
Some libertarians are minarchist meaning as little government as possible, some are anarcho-capitalists. Pro-life minarchists would be fine having punishment of abortion be treated like any other killing of a human. Anarcho-capitalists would rather not have government have a monopoly on violence.
If the NAP could be easily dismissed by just reclassifying who is and isn’t a human, then yes some form of law setting clarifying what a human is would be necessary. You bring up THE most interesting debate though in libertarian circles IMHO. Tom Woods did an interview with Gerard Casey about this topic. I highly recommend listening to the interview and giving Casey’s book a read.
Appreciate the honest and (somewhat) applicable answer!
I also DO NOT appreciate the downvotes … we really need to get rid of those. Don’t agree, fine, move on or respond civilly. A downvote is a manifestly uncivil action sanctioned by the interface.
Otherwise … to respond to the abortion argument … where this falls down for me is the complete lack of any mention of the mother or woman in your reasoning.
Scientifically, this challenges the “humanness” of a foetus in the way it is tightly coupled and dependent on another human to live.
Morally, it raises much of your reasoning in relation to not fucking with people once you consider what is effectively done to women by forcing them to carry any foetus to birth which is a massive, very active and obviously risky undertaking.
Whether these are convincing for you or others, the lack of any weight given for these considerations indicates that the act of birthing is presumed as a duty of all women. A presumption that IMO undermines the completeness of your scientific and moral arguments.
To take that a little further … should people be legally compelled to secure and save the lives of babies? As it is now, that’s not the case anywhere I know of. Causing harm would be criminal, obviously, but failing to save a baby or anyone else from harm is not.
In debating the legality of abortion you enter into similar territory. Only by presuming birth as a duty can you think otherwise.
While aborting a foetus is a positive act, there’s the complication that it’s purpose is to avoid the onus of pregnancy and birth, which can be easily seen as tantamount to “simply not doing the thing that would save the foetus’s like”, ie all the work of pregnancy and birth which is probably all too easily presumed by men (which I’m guessing you are) as a more passive and natural event than an act of effort, toil and cost.
Your last paragraph is why I want nothing to do with killing humans just for convenience. Also look at my last comment with wantd. I posed a question about when a human is viable outside of the womb at any stage of development. Would it change how you view its rights?
Although I don’t agree with expanding government, I do agree with extending rights and protections to humans at all stages of development. I do consider that a different debate though mostly in line with who should pave roads, how police should work, and who should deliver mail (once again libertarian, not authoritarian Republican)
Also don’t worry about down votes. This topic is highly contentious and both sides generally see it the other side as a direct assault on their beliefs.
Not original replier, but personally viably outside the womb changes the entire game. A strong major of my support for abortion is “I’m a man, I can’t possibly imagine getting pregnant and birthing another human”. So much of the onus of birth is the woman, a human that we also have to consider the feelings and health of. If viably was possible outside the womb, I could probably be argued into agreeing to ban abortion with some key exceptions because the world isn’t black and white.
However, I am curious on your thoughts on medical euthanasia.
I know it’s contentious, but the downvotes don’t help anything.
To your first para: viability outside the womb doesn’t, I think, affect my initial argument. If it’s viable outside of the womb, then so be it. Actively harming it would be illegal, but being legally compelled to care for it would be problematic.
Viability would alter abortion laws though, I think. In that it would make sense at some point to prohibit the mother from electing to terminate rather than submit the foetus to whatever the extra-womb viability state is. What happens then would mostly put the foetus in the same position it is now in that the onus of providing the viability of its life wouldn’t be something others are compelled to do, unless of course it’s trivial and withholding is tantamount to actively killing.
On the issue of convenience, I think that’s a misrepresentation. The thrust of the argument is consistency with the rest of social norms where the “convenience” is the freedom for a whole gender to not undertake 9 months of drastic bodily transformation and work and the remaining parental duties. If the rest of society were so committed to life and prosperity as ensuring every foetus gets taken care of, then that’s a different conversation, in large part because the mothers would be taken care of too. But consigning a whole gender’s major life experiences and burdens to a matter of “convenience”, I think, marks the dissonance that a libertarian outlook encounters when it tries to compel or outlaw actions. It’s not just convenience (in principle at least), and that this onus needs to be considered trivial indicates IMO the biases against women involved treating the issue as legally black and white.
Nonetheless, I agree with your general reasoning about not facilitating the depreciation of life. I personally extend the same reasoning to animals in my arguments in favour of veganism.
Not really what your criteria is being that I’m a pro life libertarian as far as ideals I align with most on what you’re looking for.
Even though I am religious, my argument against abortion is firstly a scientific one then on moral principal second. On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception. On the moral side it’s that I believe all humans deserve human rights no matter at what stage of development there are. Just as soon as you make exceptions to kill for one type or subset of humankind you open the door to others. Usually this is done by labeling a certain group as not human to justify oppression of said group. Terms usually used to justify acts of violence against other humans are property, subhuman, animals, savages, clump of cells, parasite, etc. Usually for libertarians it boils down to having a code called the non-aggression principal which is essentially don’t fuck with other people. This is also why I’m anti capital punishment.
I hope that helps. Also, good luck at your family get togethers, lol. It feels like you’re looking for ammunition for debates.
I won’t mention the rest of the text because I’m not interested enough on the discussion to do so. I’ll focus on a single thing.
What should be considered a human being or not is prescriptive in nature, because it involves ethics. Science - i.e. the scientific method - does not give a shit to prescriptive matters; science is descriptive, it’s worried about what happens/doesn’t happen. For science it doesn’t really matter if you call it a human, a tissue, a wug or a colourless green thing sleeping furiously, as long as you’re unambiguously and accurately describing the phenomenon being studied.
As such, no, science itself doesn’t really tell you “when it becomes a human being”.
The only thing that it “proves” is that the author (not “science”) is referring to foetuses (from nine weeks after conception [not zero] to 16 weeks) as “children”. And it certainly does not back up your claim that [ipsis litteris] “On the science side it’s a human from the moment of conception.”
And no, “The growth and development are positively influenced by factors, like parental health and genetic composition, even before conception.” does not prove it either, given that the author is solely mentioning conception as a time of reference.
Sorry to be blunt but the way that you referred to science sounds a lot like “I’m ignorant on science but I want to leech off its prestige for the sake of my argument”. If you don’t want to do this, here’s a better approach:
It’s also a nice way to avoid a fallacy/stupidity called appeal to nature (TL;DR: “[event/thing] is natural, so it’s good lol lmao”), that often plagues discussions about moral matters like abortion.
All very well put and saved me leaving a comment.
I think the responses from the conservatives in this thread have demonstrated what I’d expected, and hopefully what OP was looking for: abandonment of Christian dogma does not always result in abandonment of dogmatic values.
People who are happy to declare that the definition of something like science is anything other than what the vast majority of those accredited in scientific fields consider it to be are just as dishonest as hard-line Christians, and will vote against their own interests just as readily.
So don’t fuck with other people, unless they’re fully grown women making decisions about their own bodies, or underage victims of rape.
There no caveat or exception. Don’t fuck with other people.
But my hand is tired.
/jk
I like how you call out some terms used to dehumanization. Fetus, baby, and child also fit into that bucket imo.
So ,to clarify, you want the government to restrict and punish abortion? I thought libertarians were for less government.
Why should the government have a monopoly on violence and force in this case? Instead shouldn’t the enforcement of moral law like the NAP be up to their peers or free market hired private contractors?
Some libertarians are minarchist meaning as little government as possible, some are anarcho-capitalists. Pro-life minarchists would be fine having punishment of abortion be treated like any other killing of a human. Anarcho-capitalists would rather not have government have a monopoly on violence.
If the NAP could be easily dismissed by just reclassifying who is and isn’t a human, then yes some form of law setting clarifying what a human is would be necessary. You bring up THE most interesting debate though in libertarian circles IMHO. Tom Woods did an interview with Gerard Casey about this topic. I highly recommend listening to the interview and giving Casey’s book a read.
https://tomwoods.com/libertarian-anarchy-against-the-state-2/
Appreciate the honest and (somewhat) applicable answer!
I also DO NOT appreciate the downvotes … we really need to get rid of those. Don’t agree, fine, move on or respond civilly. A downvote is a manifestly uncivil action sanctioned by the interface.
Otherwise … to respond to the abortion argument … where this falls down for me is the complete lack of any mention of the mother or woman in your reasoning.
Scientifically, this challenges the “humanness” of a foetus in the way it is tightly coupled and dependent on another human to live. Morally, it raises much of your reasoning in relation to not fucking with people once you consider what is effectively done to women by forcing them to carry any foetus to birth which is a massive, very active and obviously risky undertaking.
Whether these are convincing for you or others, the lack of any weight given for these considerations indicates that the act of birthing is presumed as a duty of all women. A presumption that IMO undermines the completeness of your scientific and moral arguments.
To take that a little further … should people be legally compelled to secure and save the lives of babies? As it is now, that’s not the case anywhere I know of. Causing harm would be criminal, obviously, but failing to save a baby or anyone else from harm is not.
In debating the legality of abortion you enter into similar territory. Only by presuming birth as a duty can you think otherwise.
While aborting a foetus is a positive act, there’s the complication that it’s purpose is to avoid the onus of pregnancy and birth, which can be easily seen as tantamount to “simply not doing the thing that would save the foetus’s like”, ie all the work of pregnancy and birth which is probably all too easily presumed by men (which I’m guessing you are) as a more passive and natural event than an act of effort, toil and cost.
Your last paragraph is why I want nothing to do with killing humans just for convenience. Also look at my last comment with wantd. I posed a question about when a human is viable outside of the womb at any stage of development. Would it change how you view its rights?
Although I don’t agree with expanding government, I do agree with extending rights and protections to humans at all stages of development. I do consider that a different debate though mostly in line with who should pave roads, how police should work, and who should deliver mail (once again libertarian, not authoritarian Republican)
Also don’t worry about down votes. This topic is highly contentious and both sides generally see it the other side as a direct assault on their beliefs.
Abortion should be legal until the offspring is 18. “Son, this isn’t working out. Let’s go for a ride.”.
Not original replier, but personally viably outside the womb changes the entire game. A strong major of my support for abortion is “I’m a man, I can’t possibly imagine getting pregnant and birthing another human”. So much of the onus of birth is the woman, a human that we also have to consider the feelings and health of. If viably was possible outside the womb, I could probably be argued into agreeing to ban abortion with some key exceptions because the world isn’t black and white.
However, I am curious on your thoughts on medical euthanasia.
I know it’s contentious, but the downvotes don’t help anything.
To your first para: viability outside the womb doesn’t, I think, affect my initial argument. If it’s viable outside of the womb, then so be it. Actively harming it would be illegal, but being legally compelled to care for it would be problematic.
Viability would alter abortion laws though, I think. In that it would make sense at some point to prohibit the mother from electing to terminate rather than submit the foetus to whatever the extra-womb viability state is. What happens then would mostly put the foetus in the same position it is now in that the onus of providing the viability of its life wouldn’t be something others are compelled to do, unless of course it’s trivial and withholding is tantamount to actively killing.
On the issue of convenience, I think that’s a misrepresentation. The thrust of the argument is consistency with the rest of social norms where the “convenience” is the freedom for a whole gender to not undertake 9 months of drastic bodily transformation and work and the remaining parental duties. If the rest of society were so committed to life and prosperity as ensuring every foetus gets taken care of, then that’s a different conversation, in large part because the mothers would be taken care of too. But consigning a whole gender’s major life experiences and burdens to a matter of “convenience”, I think, marks the dissonance that a libertarian outlook encounters when it tries to compel or outlaw actions. It’s not just convenience (in principle at least), and that this onus needs to be considered trivial indicates IMO the biases against women involved treating the issue as legally black and white.
Nonetheless, I agree with your general reasoning about not facilitating the depreciation of life. I personally extend the same reasoning to animals in my arguments in favour of veganism.