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Thank you for saying this. It had always disturbed me how people change the name of what is quite literally ending another human life to something else as a means to soften or discard the moral implication associated with said action. It's disgusting.

Truth be told though, this renaming-bad-things-to-make-them-passable phenomenon isn't only limited to killing unborn children, and it has been going on for a long time.

'War'...what is it good for?

You may not want to hear this, but the line isn’t so fine or instant in anything except the law. When dealing with laws and regulations you ultimately have a somewhat arbitrary quality because that’s the nature of a line. Speed X is fine and dandy on the roadway, speed X+1 can get you pulled over and heavily fined. What’s the practical difference in 1 kph? Essentially nothing, except that for reasons beyond that difference of 1, a line had to be drawn.

Rational people don’t think that some magical process occurs between one instant and the next as a fetus goes from “ok to abort legally” to “illegal to abort.” The law also isn’t as involved in the spiritual or emotional content of the debate, but the practical implications. As such, law represents a compromise, hopefully a reasonable one.

Part of the problem is that some people look at a fetus and think, “small baby” and others see a potential baby. For some there is a moral imperative to support that potential, and for others there isn’t. Yet others look at a newborn and see a person, others see a potential person. The problem is that this debate is ultimately too emotionally charged for the hard biological reality to enter for most.

As a result, the law picks viability of the fetus as a line, not because of some magical transformation, but for practical reasons. It does this because outlawing abortion in no way stops abortion, it just drives it underground. The law also recognizes that the mother is a fully viable and developed person with their own rights, and (this is going to sound harsh) playing host to a parasitic organism.

Needless to say none of what I’m saying goes over well with people who don’t have a strong background in biology. The idea that the life of the mother might matter more than the life of another potential person doesn’t sit well with some people. The idea that even newborns are less “people” and and more “grub-stage people” tends to be downright offensive to many.

> Needless to say none of what I’m saying goes over well with people who don’t have a strong background in biology. The idea that the life of the mother might matter more than the life of another potential person doesn’t sit well with some people. The idea that even newborns are less “people” and and more “grub-stage people” tends to be downright offensive to many.

It doesn't go over well for many people with a strong background in biology either, to be fair.

This particular argument tries to skirt the issue by attempting to deny the existence of humanity and, less directly, "real" life by essentially stating that vulnerability removes your right to humanity. If you follow through the principle of the argument this is undeniably its core. For an overwhelming number of obvious reasons, this doesn't stack up either.

Denying the humanity of a fetus isn’t denying the humanity of people, and I said nothing about it not being “real life” either. We routinely kill and eat real life that is far more intelligent and empathetic than newborns, but it’s ok because they’re not people. Pigs for example, are intelligent and feeling creatures.

All I’m doing is failing to put human life on a pedestal, while acknowledging the difference between what something currently is vs its potential. A fetus isn’t a person, it’s something with the potential to become a person. Biology and the law both recognize that, religion and sentiment don’t.

> Denying the humanity of a fetus isn’t denying the humanity of people...

That's a leap from my statement.

> All I’m doing is failing to put human life on a pedestal, while acknowledging the difference between what something currently is vs its potential.

You've only restated that vulnerability removes right to humanity.

> A fetus isn’t a person, it’s something with the potential to become a person. Biology and the law both recognize that, religion and sentiment don’t.

A fetus is a person who's not reached the stage where you can meaningfully communicate. Your argument assigns humanity to lucidity, which is ridiculous.

Additionally, biology doesn't recognise that "it’s something with the potential to become a person", biology merely explains the building blocks, process and method. To say otherwise is to really attempt to twist mere observation to suit your viewpoint.

> The idea that you can draw the line arbitrarily along a child's development other than the very moment of inception and call one a self-centered right and the other murder is preposterous.

Not preposterous at all. The line is clear: viability outside the womb.

As a woman, I deem legal and safe abortion an exercise of my second amendment rights. If I determine that a separate individual has taken residence inside me contrary to my wishes I have the right to defend my person against that intrusion. Of course I first ask for the person to leave and find suitable accommodation elsewhere. Oh you can't leave on your own? I still don't want you here -- leave, leave now. No? Well I will stand my ground.

I really don't see why (mostly) men have no philosophical qualm with defending their home against a fully alive intruder, yet can not understand why a woman might wish to exercise a similar right over her own body.

The below may sound a bit harsh, but I'm trying to be clear - apologies in advance. I've got nothing against you or any circumstances you've been in.

> Not preposterous at all. The line is clear: viability outside the womb.

That's not an argument that makes any sense at all, nor does it stack up when put under scrutiny.

What about the viability of an infant that you arbitrarily decide you wish to eject from the home? You ask them to leave; well they can't walk. You ask them to find suitable accommodation elsewhere; well they can't talk. You tell them to feed themselves. Oh, you can't leave on your own? I still don't want you here -- leave, leave now. No?...

What about the viability of a minority group that the government decides they don't want in their country? Lets say it's a bunch of Jews, eh? Follow through with your principle and see where it leads you.

So I'd argue that this is an argument of selfishness, lack of responsibility and willful foolishness - traits which are considered highly unhealthy to self and society.

Putting that aside, the other issue is that this argument completely skips the point at hand - human life. As a society, we deal with human life carefully for a reason - it's beautiful and important - it's something to be cherished and nurtured. Arguments like these try do deny this fact by looking the other way.

If I do not control what happens to my body, what freedom do I have? I am not advocating that I individually control the expulsion of an entire group of people at a national level. I demand only control over my own reproductive function.

Women in these United States of America have no paid maternal leave unlike all other countries except 2 others, we have the highest maternal mortality rate in the developed world on par with Sri Lanka, and until Obamacare rolled around did not have automatic pre-natal care in our health insurance plans. Why should I relinquish my right to self determination for a nation that cares so little for my successful motherhood? The US at a policy level has no skin in the game, yet a large group of its citizens want to tell me what do? Screw that...

We tolerate all sorts of nonsense in the US that ends people's lives in the name of freedom. Just look to the pro-2A crowd. They take no societal accountability for the lives of people in their policy preferences. Why should I accept any less for myself?

> If I do not control what happens to my body, what freedom do I have?

This argument is again one that rejects the moral responsibility to the human child growing in the body. The notion that discontent with the situation justifies killing a human doesn't stack up.

The point about the broken USA healthcare system will never justify the killing of unborn children. It also serves as a first-world excuse that is essentially based around inconvenience.

Finally, the argument that "others do horrible things so therefore why can't we do this horrible thing too" doesn't make any kind of sense either.

It's not really horrible at all, terminating unwanted fetuses. What is horrible is being complelled against your will to bring an unwanted child into this world without the desire or ability to care for it, then knowing how backwards and broken the first world is, let alone even considering the third world, then there are some fucked up religious people who expect you to be a slave to their ideologies, even in a place that's suppose to be so nice they call it the first world.

> It's not really horrible at all, terminating unwanted fetuses.

This is the crux of the issue though, isn't it. The desperate attempt to de-humanize the child so that, in some twisted way, it's OK to kill it before you feel bad.

> you feel bad.

I only feel bad for those poor women living as a slave to their authoritarians husband in theocratic distopias and the women who are forced against their will, in the face of a system stacked against both them and their children, to bear an unwanted child because you value the life of the unborn over the lives of the living.

I don't take "personal responsibility", "unborn fetuses are people", "human life matters", etc. arguements in favor of removing women's rights to abortion seriously so long as they completely disregard and/or contribute directly to (and they do, either by omission or by party association): widespread systemic poverty, child hunger, regressive sex education, anti-women legislation and philosophies, destruction of social safety net, constant victim blaming, lies and misinformation campaigns on the LGBT community, and cutting education budgets.

So long as all of those things are being attacked, women need to be having as many abortions as possible.

Amen.

> widespread systemic poverty, child hunger, regressive sex education, anti-women legislation and philosophies, destruction of social safety net, constant victim blaming, lies and misinformation campaigns on the LGBT community, and cutting education budgets.

> So long as all of those things are being attacked, women need to be having as many abortions as possible.

Putting aside the bizarre and unfounded argument you just gave - all you've done is again looked the other way when it comes to taking human life. It's like you're sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaiming "lalalala!".

> It's like you're sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaiming "lalalala!".

It's absolutely not like that, in fact this is a spot on description of your response.

Politicians who hate LGBT (by words and/or by legislation), fight to regress sex education, fight to made women's health care difficult to acquire, cite obnoxious BS like "family values" while cheating on their wives, soliciting homosexual encounters in restrooms, literally actually molesting children and defending the molesters, unambiguously defending the act of rape (rather than strictly refuting allegations), unanimously voted against net neutrality, budget cuts for education to fund tax cuts for the wealthy, cut the social safety net for impoverished people like single mothers, fetishizing the struggle of poor people with social Darwinism while denying biological Darwinism as fact, all this with waves of jobs bring automated away.

These politicians play lip service to the abortion crowd and get the abortion vote. You can't call yourself "Pro Life" if you want to try to force women to carry unwanted children with one hand while making the world as shitty as possible for both the single mothers and their children with your other hand. You're the one who is sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaming "lalalala!". The entire abortion platform is set up to fuck us all over as soon as the child is born.

I've demonstrated that I actually care about human life, at least 100x more than you. You care about human being born. You immidietly don't give a shit about them the second after they're born.

> These politicians play lip service to the abortion crowd and get the abortion vote. You can't call yourself "Pro Life" if you want to try to force women to carry unwanted children with one hand while making the world as shitty as possible for both the single mothers and their children with your other hand. You're the one who is sticking your fingers in your ears and loudly proclaming "lalalala!". The entire abortion platform is set up to fuck us all over as soon as the child is born.

You're conflating completely unrelated politics with the point I'm making, as well as assigning them to me.

> I've demonstrated that I actually care about human life, at least 100x more than you. You care about human being born. You immidietly don't give a shit about them the second after they're born.

No you haven't. You're assigning to me the broad spectrum of stupidity of a political viewpoint and not addressing the argument at all.

> You're conflating completely unrelated politics with the point I'm making, as well as assigning them to me.

Nope, you can't vote in favor of banning abortion without voting for every shitty way republicans want to fuck over minorities. I didn't conflate them, they merged themselves together decades ago. I can't take any anti-abortion arguments seriously so long as they are attached to a long list of horrendous anti-human agendas. At this point, it's extremely difficult to consider the anti-abortion agenda to be anything other than about controlling and discriminating women. If you sincerely cared about babies, you would be completely disgusted by the way they are treated and supported after birth. But you literally only care that they pop-out alive.

There's no argument to consider because nothing about your position is sincere.

> Nope, you can't vote in favor of banning abortion without voting for every shitty way republicans want to fuck over minorities.

You've set aside reason.

> If you sincerely cared about babies, you would be completely disgusted by the way they are treated and supported after birth.

I am. However, despite this fact I'm not sure you can look past your hyperbole to discuss the points rationally.

> But you literally only care that they pop-out alive.

Where did you get this from? You're just saying random things. I can only assume you're either in a confused rage or you're just trying to misdirect the discussion to prevent rational thought about what I'm saying.

Nope, I'm the rational one here. Rationality would show that you should focus on fixing several of the endless things wrong with this world rather than isolate "baby murder" in a vacuum in a comically distopian with a hypocritical fashion.

I know you're exactly what you're saying. Baby murder bad, why refusing to acknowledge that baby murder abolishionist don't actually care about making the world a better place.

Unless you were raped, tou did invite that individual into your body, so it’s technically not an intruder.

Birth control is not 100%.

They didn't invite you, so it's also none of your business.

>Not preposterous at all. >The line is clear: >viability outside the womb.

It doesn't work this easy way. Many people are unviable outside the womb due to illness, trauma or age-related troubles, and yet they are considered humans, anyway. More to that, many (probably, majority) countries have laws punishing for refusing aid to such humans.

I’m not about to have an abortion debate on HN. My nitpick was an attempt to clear up any confusion of terms involved. The OP referenced an episode about female foeticide which is, by its definition, different from infanticide. Morality of either is irrelevant.

The confusion has since been cleared up, so there’s no need to drag it on.

(I'm not sure if I'm giving you the right context, or if you already know about it, etc etc, so blanket apology if required)

I understood and didn't take offence at the nitpick mainly due to the fact that foetus vs baby is an important argument in the pro-choice vs pro-life debate in the US; the "women should be allowed to control their bodies" side is usually presented with "should they be allowed to kill a baby to control their body", etc.

No apology required. ;)

Yeah, I had read and understood the context and ended up unsure of where to nest my rant so that it was most relevant to being discussed but least intrusive. I think I've missed the mark on that so sorry for the confusion.