"Why I don't regret my abortion"

No, shame them for the fact that they were so selfish that they wanted to keep that boy alive, suffering a truly horrifying quality of life (the likes of which most of us could scarcely even imagine), to spare them the grief of losing him. They wanted the child to suffer so that they didn't have to.

"Enjoying life" does not mean that there cannot be other considerations which override one's own enjoyment of life. And this is irrelevant in any case.



I'm not considering the rights or wishes of non-existent being. If the child is carried to term, then that hypothetical suffering has a chance to become realised (and statistically, if you have 100 babies, several of them are going to experience lives mainly characterised by grievous suffering). If the pregnancy is to be terminated, then there is no future person to be considered. It would be just as irrational to lament the joys that they will "miss out on" as it would be to feel guilty about not taking your kettle on holiday with you to Hawaii. The aborted foetus has no more need of any of the joys of life than we do. When dealing with the rights of the future person (the foetus in the mother's womb), we simply don't know whether that child is going to have a wonderful life, a mediocre life, or a terrible life. We can only assign probabilities and decide what level of risk is "worth" the supposed benefits of being brought into existence. It should not be the place of anyone else to decide what risks are "worth" the unnecessary benefits.



It's a choice, but it is not a desirable situation to be in to be contemplating that choice at all (in the vast majority of cases). And like many choices, it can be thwarted by factors outside of the control of the person who is choosing. An office chair or an aborted foetus is ignorant of the concept of choice. It would not be a "better thing" if the office chair was capable of exercising choice than if it was just an inanimate chair.



What a vision! Criminalising empathy towards those who are suffering, and 'rehabilitate' those with empathy until they are callously indifferent to the suffering they see around them. It's a shame that Ayn Rand never got round to writing that novel.

Most people who choose to die do not like life, but there are other reasons for choosing to die.




Only a being which will be born will have potential joys and satisfactions. If the foetus is aborted, it will not have any desire for the joys or satisfactions, but will be spared the suffering. Since they could not decide for themselves whether the potential joys are worth the risks, then the aggressor (the one who is imposing life) does not have sufficient moral warrant for giving birth.



Because a) the potential joys and satisfactions only become relevant once the consciousness exists in order to behold them. Therefore there is no reason for misgiving by sparing a potential future person suffering, when they will not miss out on any potential happiness; b) The person to be born cannot decide how much risk is worth the potential for happiness; c) The child may not have the same outlook as the parents and may not be satisfied with anything that life has to offer.




The child and adult that the unaborted foetus grows into will have cause to worry about suffering., as a matter of virtual certainty.



So would that also apply if it was known that the parents had a congenital condition that they would likely pass on to the child (or if it was known that the child would inherit the condition) which would result in a very poor quality of life for the child?



Contemplating suicide is almost never a desirable position to be in. Never, going by what you stated earlier in the post.



So it would be preferable for the chair to have a consciousness which would cause it to feel trapped in its perpetual office strip-lit hell? Which would cause it to lament the options which are desired but are forever out of reach? Much like many severely disabled human beings, for whom existence is defined not by having additional choices, but by the abject lack of choices available to them? A chair (a normal chair) does not care about whether it has any choices, because it doesn't need them. A severely disabled human being has a need for choice, but cannot realise any choices. Are you honestly saying that the human being who feels trapped in their own body, soiling themselves and having their nappy changed, not being able to even wipe their own nose, and knowing that there's no way out until natural death because people like you will not allow them the mercy of a way out, is in a privileged position compared to the inanimate matter.



Empathy means the ability to consider what others want; and not only one's own values and desires. That would extend to being supportive of the individuals own choice on whether they wish to exhaust all forms of treatment, or decide that the potential gains are not worth it and they wish to opt out of life altogether. That means that I, a supporter of assisted suicide and antinatalist, would be encouraging of the goals of someone who wants to explore all avenues except for suicide, whilst you would steadfastly refuse to accept a choice that goes against your own values.

I'm against forcing suffering on to another person. I don't mind what other choices people make, as long as it doesn't impact upon the wellbeing of someone who doesn't want to be negatively impacted by their choice. So if that makes me moralistic and anti-choice, then I suppose a pro-choice person would be in favour of wilfully inflicting a lifetime of suffering on other people to suit one's own emotional needs.

And I don't know whether they are Christian or not. Atheists have hang ups about death too, but Christianity is one of the most popular coping mechanisms for dealing with that fear. So I would venture that religious parents are more likely to campaign for the prolongment of the life of a child who would have terrible quality of life, but some atheists are primitive and fearful enough to do the same.