It's part of the package. The fetus just happens to have a lot more in its package than the embryo.

I don't treat people morally because they have brains and nervous systems, but because they are people who each have a place as individuals in society. — jamalrob

We treat people morally - unless we're sociopaths - mostly because we're built that way. If we need a philosophy book for much of our moral behaviour, we're in no better a position than those who feel they need a holy book for it. Philosophy is of course useful in very contentious cases on which intuitions vary. And abortion in general fits the bill well. But super-late-term abortion - not so much. There is consensus that it's wrong to kill 8 1/2 month old fetuses because we recognize that these younger versions of ourselves are very like ourselves. And empathy works largely on the principle of similarity. It also works on the principle of avoiding the greater harm which is why this:

no woman should be forced to continue with a pregnancy and undergo childbirth. — jamalrob

doesn't hold much water in these cases where the major harm - the complete destruction of one human being, the fetus, is balanced against the minor harm - the inconvenience of completing the birth. It's only when the latter minor harm becomes a major harm (generally for medical reasons) that the case is even debateable. That's as it should be. But of course If you can argue empathy out of yourself on the basis that this or that human being is not (yet) a person, this line will mean nothing to you just as to someone who does empathize with late term fetuses is not going to be swayed by any of your arguments.

Obversely, the idea that a fetus is just a mini-person is a consequence of a vulgar scientism that completely misses how human society works. — jamalrob

I never claimed the fetus is just a mini-person. I've said time and time again, the "person" debate will get us nowhere. There is no agreed definition of "person" to work with. But it doesn't have to be just a mini person to have some rights. Even animals have rights. The fetus is human; under normal circumstances it will develop into a fully grown person; it can feel pain; it has a brain; it has a nervous system; at 8 1/2 months it is fully viable. It's not just a piece of meat. It's one the most sophisticated organisms on the planet at any stage of its development. To say that we can do what we will with it needs more justification than simply the fact that we want to maintain some woolly idea of autonomy based on the very questionable premise that it's part of the woman's body.

Let's assume fetuses feel pain. Would you have no problem with an abortion of an 8.5 month old fetus being aborted if it were given anesthesia? — Moliere

I'd have just as much a problem with that as with an infanticide under anaesthesia. The reason I brought up the pain issue was to test whether those on your side were willing to cede any autonomous rights at all to the unborn. If you cede that the fetus cannot justifiably be subjected to pain without some proportionate counterbalance then the "It's a woman's right to do anything she wants with her own body" stance no longer holds water.

What I don't understand is why this idea of bodily autonomy should so outweigh all concerns about harm to the fetus even given the political considerations you've outlined. I can think of thought experiments, and I'm sure you can too, where bodily autonomy could justifiably be compromised to avoid some greater harm. So, even if I granted that the fetus were to be considered part of the woman's body, given that it could suffer terrible pain in circumstances such as I proposed above, how is the absolute maintenance of the principle of bodily autonomy an overwhelming counterbalance to this suffering?

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.

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.

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

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.

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?

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.

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.

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

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

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.

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.

Bah...I should really add supporters of super late-term abortions to pedophiles and creationists on my list of "Not worth debating" on the grounds that it just ends up degrading my view of humanity. Please excuse the public show of anger TPF people, but there's nothing I despise more than the fucking over of the innocent and the vulnerable (whatever end of the political spectrum it comes from).

If you're going to try a barb, at least get one on target. The Catholic position is no abortion at all even in cases of rape. That's not my position. My position is actually pretty mainstream; somewhere along the lines of Hanover's, I guess. Anyhow, I'm no more interested in your feelings about your character or lack of it than I am about the feelings of people who think it's OK to drop bombs on innocent kids because there might be a terrorist nearby. You don't get to sanction the killing of fetuses that are to all intents and purposes indistinguishable from new born babies and then pretend you're just a normal everyday Joe. If that makes you feel bad, tough.

Probably not the best place for an abortion debate. But to be honest, I don't see it is as even debateable when it comes to this case. I mean, if you consider killing a viable eight and a half month old fetus as perfectly moral, you're simply missing a compassion circuit.

@Moliere The only argument for allowing abortions of 8 1/2 month fetuses, seeing as they have fully developed nervous systems, can feel pain, and lack no special cognitive abilities newborns have, would be something like "out of sight, out of mind". In other words, pure laziness of thought with some philosophical blather about person-hood to make it sound respectable. I really think the left in their enthusiasm not to be the right is messed up on this issue. You either value human life or you don't and that goes right across the spectrum. There is no scientific justification for the idea that a fully developed viable fetus is any less human than a new born. The idea that one should be totally expendable and one totally protected on the basis of nothing other than semantics is contemptible.

Generalized label - European - left / American - far left.
Form of government - Social democracy (at least as a starting point).
Form of economy - Undecided.
Abortion - Fairly strong restrictions.
Gay marriage - Sure.
Death penalty - No. Life no parole.
Euthanasia - Yes (with strong limits).
Campaign finance - Strongly restricted.
Surveillance - Balanced approach.
Health care - Universal. Single payer.
Immigration - Freer movement
Education - Uni subsidized according to income. (How I got it.)
Environmental policy - Based on the science.
Gun policy - Ban the big ones.
Drug policy - Undecided.
Foreign policy - Based more on ethical concerns and less on political ones.

Trump has small hands clearly disqualifying him from the presidency. When will the American people, distracted by his love for the KKK, Mussolini and big hair, finally get that?

Justin Keller: "I shouldn’t have to see the pain, struggle, and despair of homeless people to and from my way to work every day" — Bitter Crank

Yeah, I read that. I hope someone hangs him upside-down by the balls so he comes to understand what pain, struggle and despair are. It can be done in private, of course, so no-one has to see.

Say crude things about your mom. That really pisses me off. — Hanover

OK, here it goes...My mom is a Republican.

I'll gladly feed that narrative.

Oh, I know, I was just trying to provoke you. I'll have to try harder next time. Of course people vote against their self-interest otherwise Sanders would cakewalk the nomination and the presidency.

I was flabbergasted when I read that. — Sapientia

To be fair to @Hanover, completely selfish relatively rich people interested in nothing but how much tax they have to pay have plenty to gain from a Trump presidency and plenty to lose from a Sanders one. ;)

.

He was given a four year mandate not a three year 2 month mandate. Period. Anyway, this is partisanship at its worst. Let's not insult anyone's intelligence by pretending that the Republicans wouldn't try to nominate a conservative justice if they were in Obama's position, and cry foul if the Dems tried to obstruct them (which they probably would).

War Is a Force that Gives Us Meaning - Chris Hedges.

The mid-term elections were pre-Trump. The party is in now in bits. Only an empty suit like Rubio can save it. Anyhow, not much to the Trump/Obama comparison except in the very narrow terms of down-ticket negatives. Obama is a mainstream run-of-the-mill Democrat. The only really exceptional things about him are that he's black and has a funny name. Trump is obviously not a mainstream Republican but a kind of a random populist with a big mouth. His positions are all over the place. It's strange actually. As much as I hate a lot of what he says, I find myself almost liking him at times because he looks like he doesn't give a damn about playing the game (one thing that makes him so good at it maybe). Unlike, say Obama, who on the surface I agree with on lots more but I recognize is just a great politician with all the pejoratives that that implies. (Hillary is a disgusting liar who should be either burned at the stake or driven into the sea, eh, metaphorically. Maybe we can agree on that at least.)

It's a no-win for Republicans. If they obstruct, they'll get called on it, and with the Reagan precedent, there's nowhere to hide. Plus they'll probably lose in November anyway and be faced with a Clinton/Sanders nomination. The smarter ones will want to play ball with Obama on anyone who's not too far left. I reckon. But they're probably in a minority. So, looks like more Republican self-destruction on the way.

We won't be getting significant numbers of new posters until we get permanently on to the first page of Google. And then, yes, the quality of posts may go down somewhat though that will be mitigated by more moderation. We do need to grow of course, particularly because the more posters we have the more likely we are to garner enough subscriptions to cover the costs of maintaining the site.

I'm allergic to most forms of entertainment. Odd one that.

To be fair, it would take some time to count the many ways we are all hypocrites. I recently bought a laptop and a phone and I haven't thought too much about who or what went into the making of them. I do know that combined they only cost me about a week's wages and I wasn't complaining about that then nor am I now. (Suggesting that @Bitter Crank is anything but the snappiest of dressers though is totally uncalled for.)

Everything the same, just call them Muslim, mention the word "guns" and the hysteria would begin. (Of course, a posse of Muslim ranchers is pretty much a fantasy so we're not likely to get to test an exact analogy. The main point I want to make is that it's seemingly OK to openly express hostility to Muslims in the US at the moment in a way that doesn't apply even to other traditionally discriminated-against groups.)

There is some legitimacy to the ranchers case from what I've learned about this issue although it's hard to have much sympathy for them considering the fact that one of their leaders, Cliven Bundy, is an ignorant racist (at least judging by the one car crash of an interview I saw involving him). It's also true their predominantly white male status is probably to their advantage in this dispute. But, as has been pointed out, the situation is too different to Ferguson to make it a basis for charges of significant discriminate treatment on the basis of race. And it's just too easy to jump on that bandwagon. Yes, you're at a disadvantage in just about every interaction with the law if you're black in the US but the Bundy case just isn't all that relevant to that. The more interesting thought experiment is the Muslim one. Muslim's are the new "other" in the US at the moment. Despite the fact that they're the second largest religion in the country now (if you lump all the Christian denominations together) they have almost zero political clout, and they are about the only group (with the possible exception of atheists) that it's absolutely OK to discriminate against. In the present environment, I very much doubt a Muslim anywhere in the US would get very far with any show of force involving weapons of any sort and, luckily, I'm pretty sure they know that.

Any more? We need to set up a poll fairly soon.

"Philosophy Forum" - Google - Page....1! (Ninth on page). Fantastic achievement.Thanks to all! (Y)

(Seems to go up and down on each search, so this may not be immediately replicable. But we're getting there :) ).