"Why I don't regret my abortion"

May 11, 2017 1:16:19 GMT gadreel said:

May 11, 2017 0:05:20 GMT @miccee said:

I am opposed to the creation of new life, on the basis of the fact that it will impose risks upon someone who cannot consent to those risks (on the basis that they may reap a reward that would, in the estimation of the parents "make it all worth the risk"). However, I would hesitate to use the word 'immoral' in relation to a pregnancy carried to term, if the mother had never considered the antinatalist perspective. If they weren't aware that they were imposing unnecessary risks, then they were just following their biological programming.

So it's only immoral if the woman has considered that the child might not have the best life but continues anyway?


so your stance is that women who have babies are either ignorant or immoral?  what do you think of people who have children because they think they can give them a good life and are attempting to do exactly that?

My stance on parents who have children because they think that they can give them a good life, is that I acknowledge and respect their good intentions, but whether or not the child actually has a good life is not entirely within their sphere of control. As I've mentioned earlier in this thread, things can go terribly awry in a person's life, even with the best in terms of parental support (both financial and emotional) and stability. And that's only even a narrow view of why procreation should not be continued, because you've also got to consider the potential offspring of those children, the impact that they will have on the planet, the environmental conditions they will inherit, the human and animal life that they could harm and be harmed by, etc. So I would say that procreation is something that shouldn't be done under any circumstances, by any set of parents, even if they can give the child all of the advantages to help it to thrive.

I would certainly not accuse the vast majority of parents of having ill intentions; however it would be reasonable to say that they were ignorant of the risks or possibly avoided visiting that line of thinking because producing children was something extremely important to them.

May 11, 2017 1:05:54 GMT cupcakes said:

^tpfkar

@miccee said: Whether it is rational or not is not contingent upon having any particular mindset. It's not conditionally rational, or conditionally irrational. You haven't given any rational reason why giving birth is a justifiable exception to the usual rule that we don't take unsolicited gambles with the wellbeing of someone else, just because we believe that there may be a benefit in it for them.

If you believe that life is a good thing an that antinatalism is immoral, then it is a logical extension to say that abortion is immoral and, at best, a necessary evil. If it's morally unproblematic for one particular foetus not to be carried to term and become a child, then the same thing would apply to all humans. There's no law of nature which holds that the universe is in need of humans, or any sentient life. And there are also no pre-human souls floating about in the ether waiting for their opportunity to experience of life, or to mourn the fact that this opportunity was denied to them.

Rationality is founded on premises, sorry.   "Life is horrible, ergo I want to die" can be rational, "Life is spectabulous, I want to die", less so.  Your "usual rule" is transparently leading inanity.   If a creature doesn't exist, there is nothing to take an unsolicited gamble with.   Also, if we can consider the pain/troubles that a potential being may face, we can also consider the joy/happiness they have a chance for.  Additionally, no life, potential or otherwise, can will themselves into existence, but a life can take themselves out of it, so having the opportunity for a life is a decidedly superior position to never having such an opportunity. 

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Morally I would be fine with post-birth abortions, but I realise that this would probably be too radical to ever be implemented.

"Life is spectabulous, I want to die" can be rational as well. But as a general rule, most of the people who want to die are unhappy with life.

I'm referring to taking gambles on the part of a human being in potential - the foetus who will or will not become a human who will or will not have to face the prospect of risks and hardships. The potential joys and happiness are not a relevant consideration because they would not be necessary without the conscious life-form to behold it. Moreover, it is always someone else who gets to decide whether the potential happiness is "worth" the risks that someone else will have to contend with. A non-existent being neither needs nor wants any choices at all. Choices are desirable and useful only to those who can make use of them.

With regards to suicide, that is not an easy decision to make even with the bitterest hatred of life. Many people with depressed are actually too depressed to kill themselves, given that it takes a certain degree of motivation in order to even form the plan to commit suicide and take the necessary actions. Overcoming a primal fear and inflicting a brutal form of violence upon one's own body also requires a not inconsiderable degree of emotional energy, courage and determination which cannot be summoned by many people. And most of the world's governments share in your barbaric sentiment that the desire to end life is not sufficient grounds to warrant the provision of humane assistance to complete the task.