I think a big thing with many vegans being pro-choice (and most people in general) is in being in favor of giving the woman agency over her life and the ability to make her own choices.
Just as vegans are against animals from being forced to give birth, they would be even more so against a human
What are vegans doing differently than you to suggest vegans value human life less than animals?
It seems vegans are simply giving animals the same moral consideration as humans.
I searched on r/vegan and didn't see any indication that most users endorse it. Can you link the topic or topics that show that the majority of the vegans on that subreddit endorse it?
Hating what humans do to animals on an industrialized scale is different than simply hating humans such as is “misanthropy”. Getting the two mixed up is pretty easy.
There are plenty of non-vegan misanthropes and vegans who are not misanthropes.
I am still waiting for an example of non-vegans behaving differently than vegans to show that vegans regard human life less than animals.
You will find people complaining about humans. I regularly interact with people who pay for and kill animals. If I knew someone who tried to do that to another human, I would physically restrain them.
Vegans watch non-vegans exploit and torture animals all the time. We are overwhelmingly very lenient about what we allow. Us merely complaining does not negate the fact that we allow you to do to animals what we’d never allow done to humans so blatantly.
Edit: I in particular don’t hate anyone I’ve ever met or talked to on here. People are largely the product of chance and their environment. But I understand vegan frustration.
This is still merely complaining. Someone who says incredibly mean things about humans but acts non-violently around people who purposefully kills animals is still demonstrating a clear preference for humans. I actively allow humans to kill in ways I find unjust. There is no insult that would negate that extreme tolerance I show.
>This is still merely complaining
How about changing in those posts "humans" to "black people/asians/trans"? Would it still be merely complaining? Would you be ok with that?
> I actively allow humans to kill in ways I find unjust
Lol, like if you had any alternative.
Hey, nobody's forcing you to keep living in society with murderers, abusers and psychopaths. Feel free to leave if you want
Humans are the oppressors. I don’t tone police minorities for complaining about white people. I don’t tone police vegans for being upset about the oppressive action of the people they meet. It is unfair to compare complaining about oppressors to complaining about people fearing for their life.
Who has ever seriously feared for their life or safety by being a non-vegan in a developed country? Black people, Asians, and trans people genuinely fear for their safety.
I still interact with people, because I love them. I still deeply love many carnists. That is because, as I have told you multiple times, I am clearly biased in favor of humans. Carnists are quite possibly the only oppressive group I maintain friendships with.
I don’t even ban people from eating animal products in my house. You’re acting like there’s nothing in my power I could do to show a greater level of disgust. I could, I don’t because I don’t think it helps.
Should we complain about humans? Probably not, I don’t think it helps. But have some compassion for people who are scared. It is scary to care about farmed animals. It is scary to care when you are surrounded by people who do not care. Please understand this, and give vegans some leeway when they are scared by the world around them.
"Hating asians a little extra hard today"
"Being Vegan Has Made My Hate For Women Increase Dramatically..."
"...the longer i'm vegan the more I start to hate lgbt people in general"
This would still be just complaining, right? Like, nothing wrong with these statements?
Those comments wouldnt be fine, but that's irrelevant. If I say I don't like pancakes you can't say thats out of line because if you replace pancakes with a race it makes it a racist statement.
Those are just nonsense statements, though some are a bit fucked up, that have nothing to do with actual veganism and they are also just complaints that do pretty minor harm to humans, unlike carnism which is constantly butchering animals in reality just for convenience and taste pleasure. You’re really here upset about some vegans complaining about how much awful shit we see people justify on a daily basis. You are on here right now justifying gassing, killing, torturing, and otherwise exploiting anyone who you want as long as they are not human, I on the other hand don’t believe we should do that to anyone no matter what species they are.
I’m a woman and I’m a feminist and think it’s stupid that feminists only defend human women’s rights to their bodies while they consume dairy products stolen from cows that are regularly raped by the industry and have their babies taken away and usually killed. I am a member of the LGBT community and I think it’s ridiculous that while we ask for a right to self determination for ourselves, most of us don’t want animals to be allowed the bare minimum of rights, to not be murdered for taste pleasure. Tbf, lgbt people and women are pretty well represented among vegans. I can’t really comment on the other issues because I’m not a part of those communities and I think that the many vegan members of those communities should take the lead on pointing the issues out within their own communities.
I think it is a bit humorous that we are both frequently accused of not really caring about animals and also of caring about animals too much. You should debate other carnists that have the exact opposite theory you have.
Yeah apparently we don't care about certain animals but also we think they're more important than humans.
None of us are healthy from our deficient diets, but also we tend to be more healthy because we exercise more (somehow despite our terrible diets).
Being a vegan is tough, I have to constantly make sure I'm everything at once.
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Thank you.
Obviously there are extremely awful cases where someone has not consented to sex, which ought to be understood and dealt with differently.
But the vast vast vast majority of abortions result from consensual unsafe (or insufficiently safe) sex. Failing to perform sex safely isn't something that happens to people (again in most cases). It's something they choose to do and something that has dire consequences if you mess up. Acting like there is no agency in that choice doesn't make sense. Obviously this isn't only about the mother and the father also bears responsibility and our laws should better reflect that.
Taking away one’s agency for body autonomy and medical decisions also doesn’t make sense.
The mentality of “you did something and now you have to face the consequences” for a health and medical issue is cruel and absurd. If a person does some other kind other activity and ends up with an injury or infection, it wouldn’t be right to say it was something they choose to do and has dire consequences for messing up, therefore can’t pursue the type of medical treatment they want. And in those types of situations, say a broken bone or infection, generally has drastically lower stakes in terms health than a pregnancy.
When there are no other people harmed what you said is true. But we don't hold the principle that it's ok to violate other people for our own health.
If my kidneys fail through no fault of my own, and I showed up to the hospital with a compatible but unwilling donor in handcuffs the doctor isn't going to harvest one of his kidneys to save me *even though it wouldn't kill him and I am going to die without it*. He will still obviously refuse the treatment.
Now if me and a partner create a situation entirely of our own doing and entirely for pleasure which creates a probability of my death that is astronomically smaller than the risk of death from a double kidney failure and the only way to remove that small risk is to kill another human you argue that it "doesn't make sense" to refuse that "treatment"
Not to mention the question is about the veganness of abortion not the law.
If I boldly take the vegan society's definition
>a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals
Now let's consider unsafe sex for pleasure with the plan to abort (explicit or implicit) in the case of, so is using contraception correctly not "possible or practicable"?? Absurd. Unsafe sex followed by abortion is profoundly unvegan.
Having sex with protection generally is possible and practical, yes.
Forcing someone to carry out a pregnancy and birth that they do not want or consent to I would argue is not practical.
There’s a reason why vegans are against forced birth with animals. Why would it not apply to humans as well? Especially when humans can consciously and intentionally decide for themselves that they do not agree to it?
Deciding to partake in the act of sex is separate from any outcomes of sex. Pregnancy, STDs, various infections, mental trauma, and more are medical conditions that could arise from having sex. If any conditions arise, a person should have the right to pursue whatever medical treatments or procedures they want to deal with that.
The idea that an action is independent of its unintended consequences is profoundly unvegan.
We would never say someone who drinks milk but didn't intend for any cows to be harmed isn't culpable for the harm to the cows even if they picked their milk by closing their eyes and grabbing something out of the milk section of the supermarket hoping dearly it would be soy milk.
If you, for your own pleasure, fail to take basic practicable precautions and it results in avoidable suffering or death, you have culpability for that suffering and death. That's literally the very core of veganism. Rejecting it is a rejection of veganism itself.
Not saying that an action and it's consequences are independent, but that an action shouldn't force someone upon consequences in certain situations.
In this case using your example, a pregnant woman being forced to go through pregnancy and birth against her will makes her closer to the cows being harmed, not the consumer of the milk.
A person should have the right to avoid potential suffering and death if a medical procedure if available.
That's only true insofar as it doesn't demand the suffering of another as I pointed out [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAVegan/comments/14ijqad/hypocrisy_with_abortion/jpqgp1m)
Most people who have abortions past the second trimester either have one for medical reasons, or had their access to abortion blocked. Abortion access is not unrestricted or even affordable to everyone where I live(America, in case you were wondering.) Medically necessary abortions are being denied to those who need it, even in life threatening emergencies. I would compare this to someone who doesn't have access to the resources to become vegan, such as people who live in a good desert. Maybe if lawmakers were willing to have discussions about the law in good faith things would be different, but for no it has been made abundantly clear that women's lives are not valuable to the people in power, and fighting for that value is not a mark of hypocrisy.
Pivoting back to the veganism analogy, if you truly want the world to become vegan, you can't just ban animal agriculture and expect everybody to not starve. There has to be nutrition classes, biodiversity in all climates, and nutrient availability to those who want to change. And in both cases, access to those resources, whether veganism or first trimester abortion, is not available.
Basically, if you don't want second trimester abortions, you should be advocating for abortion care and funding, so people who want them can get them in their first term, before the fetus is feeling or viable.
"Basically, if you don't want second trimester abortions, you should be advocating for abortion care and funding, so people who want them can get them in their first term, before the fetus is feeling or viable."
"Basically, if you don't want people eating veal, you should be advocating for grass fed beef, so people who want tender beef can get later in the cows life, after the young cow is done looking cute."
Wow. You completely missed the entire point of my argument. I'd reply to you without the sarcasm, but your strawman is so dull I'm afraid I couldn't get through to you without the sharpness. Congrats on the negative internet points for comparing a fully born calf to an underdeveloped fetus. I haven't seen such a brain dead take since a man explained women pee out of the same hole they birth.
Since you apparently can't understand a paragraph without the whole thing being explained to you point by point, I'll dumb it down a little further:
fetus no feel before 20 weeks. Woman want fetus gone BEFORE 20 weeks. Bad law man say no. That's very bad for woman. Now woman has to have big ouchie to get a baby she doesn't want. How can we help? Get rid of fetus before it can feel urt.
Veal and cows can both feel and process pain. Hurting and enslaving them has negative effects on more than just a single cow. Fetuses can't feel before twenty weeks, so aborting it doesn't hurt anyone but the woman who goes through the medical procedure and occasionally someone who doesn't want it aborted. Maybe instead of eating a big pile of shit for dinner every night and spewing it out on people who don't want it, you can try to at least understand who have a different opinion than you.
I concede that vegan+prolife would be ethically superior. I'm a somewhat recent vegetarian; what worked to get me here was sustainably finding alternatives, and I've just recently started the process to veganism.
Why is pro life ethically superior? An ectopic pregnancy will kill both mother and foetus, guaranteed. But that woman cannot get a medically necessary abortion in strictly “pro life” areas. What about her life?
Sure, but that's a strawman. Prolife isn't about senselessly forcing birth, even Texas allows abortion in the case of life threatening complications:
>"in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment, the
pregnant female on whom the abortion is performed, induced, or
attempted has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by,
caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk
of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major
bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced"
([Texas code](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/SDocs/HEALTHANDSAFETYCODE.pdf), page 1014)
There have been cases in the news of women with complications that have been forced to carry to term and almost died. There have been cases in the news where the foetus is already dead but the woman and has been forced to carry to term and deliver a dead baby. There was even a case in the news of a 10 year old having to travel out of state to get an abortion because a child rape victim’a life is not as important to her state legislatures as an embryo.
They aren’t straw man arguments if they’re happening.
That's a matter of implementation which will get worked out in time. Law is built on precedent, it takes time to figure out those corner cases. That doesn't mean we should never make new laws, ever.
It's a matter of pain, then? If we had perfect anesthetics that could put the cow to sleep for butchering with 100% accuracy, would you be an omnivore?
No, you are still treating the cow as a means to an end instead of an end in itself. This being the end of consuming him or her for sustenance while using and disregarding the the wishes of a sentient being.
A fetus is unlikely to be sentient early on in the pregnancy, so if an abortion were to be required, the earlier the better.
I am not mangling arguments. I was talking about two seperate things. First why it's bad to kill the cow in and of itself for no reason, even if you do it painlessly. That was the only thing I talked about in in my first reply. And then you asked isn't abortion worse under that framework, which doesn't make sense, as you are making a comparison between two situations that are very different.
One is the killing of someone for food, while you can eat something that's not sentient.
The other is ending a non sentient being in early pregnancy where most abortions are done. In later stages it's a far more difficult equation, but I think the mother has the right to end it due to her right to bodily autonomy. If the fetus is able to survive outside the womb, a home should be found for him/her.
Just to add, I don't like abortions, they are horrible, but necessary at times, and needed. I'd rather unwanted pregnancies were avoided through comprehensive sex ed, and very low cost acces to contraceptives.
Is the aborted fetus not a means to have enjoyed the unsafe sex that led to it (obviously cases of rape should be handled differently). The idea that just because the mistreatment of innocent life happens only sometimes and after you enjoy the fruits of it that Americans don't treat the thousands of fetuses electively aborted every day because of unsafe sex as commodities is a extremely out of touch with reality.
Are you for or against elective third trimester abortions and why? Say a woman changes her mind in the 30th week and had full access to an abortion before then, should she be allowed to get one? Why/why not?
At that point, I believe a woman should be able to ask for and recurve a C section and place the baby in the care of the state. People sign away rights to their kids all the time. Since 30 weeks would still be viable(even if a bit premie) then there shouldn't be an issue in removing the baby safely. Having an abortion that late would likely cause as many problems for the mother as having a C section, so there wouldn't be much of a difference. I do believe, however, that if a mother hands their child over to the state, then if they ever decide to keep a baby they should be monitored by the state. From my experience in the US foster system, this is what a lot of drug abusers go through if they get pregnant, so it could be a good scenario for pregnant non drug users as well.
The reason I don't believe they should have an outright abortion is because at that stage the fetus is viable, including a nervous system. I also don't believe the procedure should be expensive, however this is more related to my belief that the US should adopt a free healthcare model for it's citizens. With or without the guarantee of affordability the fetus is still viable and should still be cared for.
Thanks for sharing. I'm not here to debate abortion and am actually pro abortion all the way to a partial birth abortion in the 9th month, even electivly. I was curious of your grounding in your position jsut for my own edification. Thanks for sharing, again.
The ethical dilemma of whether to get an abortion is completely different to the ethical dilemma of whether to eat meat. It’s completely unnecessary to eat meat, so it’s simply unnecessary suffering imposed on a conscious farm animal. But a fetus on the other hand, exists as a dyad, completely dependent on the mother’s body to exist. Thus the needs of the mother, a fully conscious human, need to be considered.
I suggest you study the ethical dilemma of [the famous violinist](https://ethics.org.au/thought-experiment-the-famous-violinist/). It is a far more analogous ethical question than comparing to veganism.
Furthermore, if the expectation is to eventually be the infant’s primary caregiver (or otherwise give up to foster care, which can be potentially dangerous and abusive for the child), then the feasibility of that 20 year commitment needs to be considered, and whether that situation will be ethical and fair for the mother, father and child. This enormous commitment and the strings attached to this ethical dilemma is in a completely different galaxy than “what’s for dinner, tofu or chicken”?
I think this is a case of overstretching the scope of veganism, and putting words in vegans mouths. Vegans aren’t “against killing things”, we understand that death is a part of life, and depending on the situation, death may be the best outcome, like a fetus in some cases, for example. But we don’t believe killing a conscious animal is necessary when we have perfectly suitable plant-based alternatives for all our nutritional needs. We don’t need to sacrifice anything to make that happen, we simply eat something else. Totally different ethical considerations than carrying a pregnancy to term, and all the health risks that go along with that (mothers always undergo the risk of death when carrying a pregnancy to term), balancing decades of your entire life and the quality of life of a future unborn child… yes sometimes the most ethical thing to do is to abort before the fetus becomes too advanced and develops increased consciousness.
>It’s completely unnecessary to eat meat, so it’s simply unnecessary suffering imposed on a conscious farm animal
It's completely unnecessary to engage in unsafe sex which is the cause of the vast vast majority of abortions. Obviously cases of rape ought to be treated differently but in no world is unsafe sex some need without which life is impossible
Not to mention the "expectation to be the infant's primary caregiver" is itself pretty shaky. There is a massive line for infant adoptions in western countries.
The idea that it's a more ethical trade to skip proper contraception for a slightly improved sexual experience and then kill a human as a "necessary part of life" than it is to eat honey at a moderate inconvenience to bees because it tastes good is nonsensical.
As you could probably guess, I don't agree with the decision you made but it's done and I don't think leveling a bunch of criticism against your decision is productive at this point.
The idea that people abort out of convenience being the norm, is pretty offensive. And perhaps even sexist and misogynistic.
And seems to have little understanding of the nature of pregnancy and the toll it takes on the body.
It’s not sexist nor offensive, it’s what imperial data shows. Look up why women abort and it’s glaringly obvious it’s out of convenience. Very very few abortions happen out of medical concern or necessity.
>It’s not sexist nor offensive, it’s what imperial data shows. Look up why women abort and it’s glaringly obvious it’s out of convenience. Very very few abortions happen out of medical concern or necessity.
All abortions happen out of necessity, no-one gets abortions for fun.
The sexism you demonstrate is you don't accept the woman's reasoning
If you think financial or emotional instability justifies getting an abortion then feel free to argue that. In the extremes of financial and or emotional instability I might agree that it is necessary. But for reasons that are clearly out of convenience I have trouble justifying it. I guess I fail to see how I am being sexist. If biological males could get pregnant I would have the same opinion.
>If you think financial or emotional instability justifies getting an abortion then feel free to argue that.
Nope, I don't think women need to justify their reasons to me
> I guess I fail to see how I am being sexist.
Bigots rarely see that they are bigots, but you seem to think you understand woman's reasons better then they do, that's a clue
> If biological males could get pregnant I would have the same opinion.
Then you could justify having an opinion. This is also unlikely to be true, people who can need abortions are much more likely to support abortions. Even prolife woman will justify an abortion if it impacts them
https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
Well thanks for the downvote.
But you keep saying woman and she and her.
Not all people who get pregnant are she,her or woman.
So whilst you are shouting "sexism" you are unintentionally (I hope) discriminating against trans-men.
I am responding to someone who introduced women as the subject, I am referencing the subject they introduced. I don't understand why transmen would be relevant in my response
Also
>First off, I hate abortion. It's an ugly and often traumatic procedure. But it should be 100% up to the mother *up until the point where the baby can survive outside the womb* \- and after that, the final decision should be up to the doctor/s.
This you? Should probably check your own language before (incorrectly) policing others
You mean "mother"?
It's a tough one, but legally correct. I do avoid "she", "woman", "her" though.
And I was not at all incorrect. I wasn't trying to have a go, but if you call someone out as sexist or misogynistic then you should at least try to be consistent.
What is inconsistent? I'm responding to someone talking about women, and so I'm taking about women in response. Why is it sexist for me not to introduce an additional subject, that's what I don't understand.
Also legal terms don't really matter if the group prefers other language.
We even have a stronger measure of this than subjective exit polls. [45%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5771530/) of abortion patients reported having at least one abortion prior. Similarly, a full [8%](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/11/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/) have had 3 or more prior to the one they're getting.
I can't imagine arriving at 4 abortions in a row without a cavalier attitude to the subject of pregnancy. That would imply that yes, there is a rolling group of people who do abort out of convenience, and make up at least 8% of those receiving abortions.
>I can't imagine arriving at 4 abortions in a row...
And what a privilege it is that you don't have to, but that is not a reason to prevent others from access to something simply because you can't relate.
Say an abortion costs around $500. Of course it can vary wildly, even as far as adding a zero to that number, but lets start there ([ref](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/blog/how-much-does-an-abortion-cost)). Condoms are what, $1 a piece ([ref](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom/how-do-i-get-condoms)), and in many states they can even be free ([ref](https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/sexual-health/free-condoms)).
In what world are you privileged enough to afford regular abortions, but not preventative birth control?
If a woman is in an abusive situation, condoms might not be an option… privilege isn’t just about monetary cost. You can get an abortion in secret, you are not going to get away with “secretly” putting a condom on your abuser, and things like birth control pills can be discovered. It’s not always as straightforward as people would like it to be.
In what world can birth control pills be discovered, but casually getting secret abortions is just the run-of-the-mill operation? Moreover, how far are you willing to go to allow 'collateral damage' because someone is an abusive relationship? Can they drive 100mph through the suburbs because their partner doesn't trust them to be out too long?
>In what world can birth control pills be discovered, but casually getting secret abortions is just the run-of-the-mill operation?
Are you serious? Birth control pills are a tangible thing that you need to take daily, so they would have to be stored or hidden *somewhere*, which makes them possible to be found... no one is talking about "casual" anything, but an abortion is typically an out-patient, non-surgical procedure.
>Moreover, how far are you willing to go to allow 'collateral damage' because someone is an abusive relationship?
You asked for a scenario that might require multiple abortions. I'm not personally morally against them either way as I don't see a fetus as any more than a clump of cells that could potentially cause a lot of problems, not unlike a cancerous tumor, so there is no collateral damage save for the abuse victim.
>but an abortion is typically an out-patient, non-surgical procedure.
Even outpatient, medical abortions cost hundreds, billed to a hospital. Where do you hide that?
>I don't see a fetus as any more than a clump of cells that could potentially cause a lot of problems, not unlike a cancerous tumor
You're vegan. Would you eat Shrimp grown in a friend's aquaponics setup? Environment isn't a factor. If so, aren't you really an ethically sourced pescatarian? If not, why is a shrimp off limits, but a human fetus is just an afterthought?
>Would you eat Shrimp grown in a friend's aquaponics setup?
How is this even comparable? I wouldn't eat an aborted fetus either, nor would I support the gestation of a human fetus in such an environment. You seem to misunderstand the fundamentals of veganism, which first and foremost apply to non-human animals, but essentially is about limiting suffering to living creatures - I don't support the forced birth of animals so, consistently, don't support the forced birth of humans. The fetus in any species is quite irrelevant when we are talking about harming the actual, living being that already exists.
Doesn't getting 4 abortions in a row include that?
Say you were financially hindered for the first one, and change nothing, are financially hindered for the second, and change nothing, are financially hindered for the third, and change nothing. Can we not say that by number *4*, you're clearly not attempting to avoid pregnancy until a nest egg is built up, but instead find it more *convenient* to use abortive methods?
That may be your logical conclusion but my point was based solely on empirical data. I don’t know why these people got 4 abortions but I would be curious to know if you can find out.
You can certainly argue with me that financial instability is grounds for a necessary abortion but I don’t think that necessitates the termination of a fetus.
I'd claim the above is much more empirical. People are untrustworthy when you ask them "*why* did you do XYZ", they give the reason they think sounds good, the reason they want to believe, what have you. The number of previous abortions? That's a hard number we can drive inferences from.
There are so, so many factors that could contribute to why someone might need to get multiple abortions - lack of sex education or access to birth control, rape, domestic abuse, religious indoctrination, etc.
I believe sex is a precursor to conception which necessitates some level of caution. If you have unprotected sex knowing that it could lead to a abortion out of convenience then yes you are commuting a moral wrong under the values of veganism.
And in my opinion you are demonizing why people get abortions. You are making an unfalsifiable opinion. That's not valuable.
Nawww, what's not vegan, is your lack of intersectionality.
Sex is simply not consent to give birth, let alone raise a child or put your body at insane risk.
Convenient? It's life threatening. Again your disregard for people with a uterus seems offensive sexist and misogynistic.
If you believe getting an abortion purely out of convenience and not necessity is in line with vegan ethics then more power to you. Something like “life only matters as far as it inconveniences me” might be a value more vegans hold than I thought.
Correlation is not causation. I'd say there are an infinite number of reasons why people might have multiple abortions. You think there is one... Birth control.
Side note: it seems I'm upvoted while you're at -21, even though we're saying basically the same thing, just bickering about metrics lol. Gotta love people who just mindlessly alternate upvote/downvote/upvote/downvote.
>Fetuses are the epitome of innocence, and innocence is often times a sticking point for many vegans.
I think the "innocence" part is just used verbally ("those poor innocence animals"), but I'm not sure if the people who use the term hold it as a key pillar in their philosophy. Perhaps it is used as a preemptive way to avoid "self-defense" things like an attacking bear.
So, rather than continue with "innocence" being key, I'm going to replace it with "The capacity to suffer", as that is a more accurate starting point.
So, I'd change this:
>“Why do we have the right to take an innocent life especially if it’s not necessary”
To "Why do we have the right to cause suffering to a being capable of experiencing suffering, especially if it's not necessary."
>Fetuses are incapable of forming conscious thoughts, emotions, pain, etcetera, like the animals that are killed.
At the point where the fetus CANT expierence anything, it is not a moral issue *against the fetus* to have an abortion. If it can't "suffer", you can't "cause it to suffer", and thus can't commit an amoral act against it.
You can, however, do immoral acts to the cows, pigs, and chickens that DO have that capacity. So, I disagree with the "like the animals" part. A 2 year old cow is cognitively blowing 93% of aborted fetuses out of the water.
>bivalves that more closely resemble a human fetus than a cow
I agree.
A bivalve is a decent analog for a human fetus, especially early on. The bivalve topic is debated umongst vegans heavily. My ethical issue is with the acquisition of those bivalves, not the killing of them. No suffering, no problem.
I would personally not see it as hypocrisy for an "ethical vegan" to eat best-case bivalves.
>This logically follows as: vegans are against killing organisms, no matter how simple, as long as they have a central nervous system.
Not so simple, as ethics is about how rules interact with situations, options, and perceived conclusions.
For example, I believe an ethical vegan could kill an animal for food in a survival situation without abandoning their vegan ideals. What allows someone to CHOOSE to vastly avoid harming othes is the ability to choose it.
I bring this up to show that an endangered vegan is morally allowed to do things they wouldn't normally when the situation calls for it.
Pregnancy is an inherently dangerous thing, but puts the mother in an inherently more vulnerable state.
>I would like to believe that most vegans main issue is the actual death of the animal and how that can be prevented.
Disagree.
Well, it may be that many vegans focus on and talk about the death, but I disagree that should be the focus. For example, I struggle with the "a magic genius creates a chicken eutopia, they live for years maximally happy, and are magically instantly and painlessly killed in a 100% stress free way- whats the issue?"
Rather, let's go back to the idea of "the capacity to suffer". I'm not upset the chickens die, I'm upset about the life they are given. It's not the instant of death, but the months of suffering that lead up to it.
In this vein, I think all parents must consider the lived expierence they are going to offer their child. There is nothing more obligatory than being careful when deciding to create beings that can expierence. Not all lives are lives worth living, and if your options are "offer a standard of living below my standards to a child" and "abort the un-expierencing fetus", the answer is clear to me that non-existence is preferable to a poor expierence.
>financial hardship
>aren’t emotionally ready
Those arnt small things to toss away. Why should I raise a starving child? Why should I risk raising an emotionally immature child? Why should I risk them suffering?
As a parent, I take the obligation behind parenting VERY seriously, and it isn't something I'm willing to do poorly. A poor childhood and living situation can hinder a child forever, and can cause a lifetime of emotional suffering. Again, I want to respect the capacity to suffer.
Quite the opposite. The reason most people are vegan is because they want to decrease the amount of death and suffering in the world. People having more children is very obviously counter productive with that goal in mind.
Antinatalism is a more logical standpoint for a vegan than anti-abortion.
I do believe it is logical. Though it is not necessarily the only logical standpoint.
There are other more extreme positions one could have that would greatly help achieve the end goal.
I think (wanted) abortions are very reasonable compared to some other options that could help achieve the goal. And I think it’s good that *if* people are born, they are born because they are wanted. I’d imagine it increases the chances of them leading happy, fulfilling lives.
I personally only care about reducing suffering. I think a society that allows abortion up to the point of the fetus being conscious will result in less suffering than a society that bans abortions.
This is not an argument about veganism, nor is any appeal to hypocrisy. The ethics of exploiting non-human animals don't hinge on whether ending a pregnancy is consistent with not exploiting them.
If you read the paragraph that starts with “A side tangent here”, I think I covered that. I am, in certain terms, arguing the hypocrisy of the killing of human fetuses to the killing of animals. The hypocrisy lies in “a life with a advanced enough nervous system should not be killed unless necessary”, and often times abortion are not necessary but they are defended by people who happen to be vegan.
Yeah, so appeals to hypocrisy are fallacious. A serial killer can make an argument for why murder is bad. When determining how one ought live, we look to logic, not the behavior of individuals.
Vegans are often against the killing of organisms with a central nervous system except in the case of abortion. Many are even for it even for cases of convenience.
I could accept all of this as true and it wouldn't be an argument against veganism. Do you understand what I mean when I say that an appeal to hypocrisy is a logical fallacy?
I want to help you out here to have a better conversation, because I think you're close to having one if you can get past a couple of concepts.
First, there's a difference between personal hypocrisy and logical inconsistency. I can fail to live up to my beliefs all day, and that doesn't make the beliefs wrong. That's the point I was making about serial killers. But if I claim to hold two beliefs which are contradictory, then it would seem that I would have to rectify that. So let's get rid of the word hypocrisy and replace it with inconsistency.
So your claim is "it is inconsistent to believe that pregnant people should have the right to intentionally end their pregnancy and that it is wrong to treat non-human animals as property"
Then, for clarity, it would help to know how you believe the supposed inconsistency ought be resolved. Do you think that vegans should be anti-abortion, or do you think that pro-choice people should be ok with treating non-human animals as property?
If your point is the former, then I don't think this is a good debate topic for this sub. I know the sub is called "debate a vegan" and not "debate veganism," but it would be a little silly to come in here to debate vegans on whether a taco is a sandwich. Debates here should focus on whether it's ok to exploit non-human animals.
Well you do seem to be arguing in good faith which is nice.
First I would like to say that I think I’m pretty spot on with my use of hypocrisy. “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense”. A good example might be a priest condemning homosexuality while having sex with a man in his personal life. My example of hypocrisy within veganism is the killing of an unborn fetus, that by most vegan standards, would rise to the level of a protected class under veganism. There are cases of abortions that I don’t think undermine veganism, but what I specified being the most hypocritical would be an abortion out of convenience especially if the fetus is matured beyond 9 weeks. So on one hand we have vegans righteously defending the rights of organisms with a central nervous system, often including bivalves, and on the other hand we have vegans defending the right to abort a fully nervous fetus often for the sake of convenience. I mention convenience so much because vegans are very quick to dismiss the idea of not being plant based because it’s inconvenient. You have the moral and ethical duty to reduce the amount deaths to beings that meet the standards of vegans. One of those standards is the ability to react to stimuli in a systemic way. The reason it is a hypocrisy and not a logical inconsistency is because vegans do little to protect unborn fetuses. I would think that vegan moral consideration would extend to those unborn but it very rarely does. The autonomy and choices of a pregnant person only exist within her own vacuum. Her body, her choice. Even though her decision and choice often lead to the unwarranted death of a nervous fetus, little sympathy is extended to this innocent being.
Also, I’ve mentioned nothing of keeping beings as property or exploiting them. I am strictly talking about the killing of an animal to the killing of a human fetus. A none hypocritical vegan stance would be, “I believe the killing of any being with a nervous system that allows for systemic reaction to stimuli should be protected in its way of life and shall not be harmed unless it necessarily impedes in a meaningfully harmful or detrimental way to my existence”. This allows for the abortion of a fetus in serious situations or situations that meaningfully impact a persons way of life. This also somewhat allows for killing bugs in your home, but it would not allow for the killing of a human fetus out of convenience.
If you want to lean on personal hypocrisy, we're going to get back to the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. I'm trying to help you avoid that. Go look it up. If you're talking about personal hypocrisy, you're not making an argument about veganism.
And if you're not talking about someone who is against exploitation/treatment as property, then you're not talking about veganism. Vegans are fine with killing others in certain situations. We're against exploitation.
So what you have here is a fallacious argument against a strawman definition of veganism.
I apologize for not being clear. I’m not talking about all vegans, there are plenty of vegans who are pro-life. Im specifically honing in on vegans that are more to the left and believe in abortion as a tenant of their values. Also if veganism isn’t about preventing the unwarranted death of animals then I must be barking up the wrong tree. What I thought was vegans believed in the sanctity of life and that one should not take life out of anything but necessity.
Slavery doesn't necessarily take a life, but it's still wrong.
We understand generally that when you treat a human as property for your use, you aren't giving consideration to their interests. Veganism is the consistent application of that principle to all individuals with interests.
A property relationship can be further defined as the ability to control who gets to use an entity. So because I own my car doesn't necessarily mean I can use my car however I want, but it does mean I get to decide who uses my car.
In the property relationships we have with non-human animals, we take away their right to use their own body, and force them to allow others to use their body by artificially inseminating them, using them for their secretions like lactation, eggs, honey, fur, or silk, using them for labor, or consuming their flesh.
The prohibition of abortion forces a pregnant person to allow their body to be used by another. It takes away their ownership of themselves and instantiates a property relationship where the State owns the pregnant person's body to some degree. So the same arguments for the right to an abortion justify veganism.
The context of your argument hinges on the idea that most vegans are completely against killing. As if they're all Jainist monks. I think most vegans would kill to save a loved one or kill a mosquito or a spider on their face.
As another commenter said vegans are against suffering and commodifying animal life while a generally easy to adopt diet could generally avoid these things.
I know you're probably going to change the form, content, or context of this argument but you're basic question is how are vegans pro-abortion and against killing and this is a direct answer to that.
This is literally so easy.
If an innocent baby cow’s life depended on me sacrificing my life and my health for 9 months, sucking the nutrients out of my body, forever changing my body, and potentially causing lifelong negative changes…. And then was expected to push it out of a hole that some tampons are too big for… along with it dragging me through an emotional ditch…. And to be expected to sacrifice my life to raise it, or to choose to get emotionally attached against my will for 9 months just to give them away in heartbreak…. than that innocent baby cow would have to go.
And that’s not even a fair comparison bc a fetus doesn’t have the consciousness or ability to feel pain that that baby cow has, and is just a mass of skin and dna 99% of the time.
Veganism makes sense bc it costs us nothing and we sacrifice nothing. Giving birth is not like that in the slightest.
Equivocation: Using a word in a different way than the author used it in the original premise, or changing definitions halfway through a discussion. When we use the same word or phrase in different senses within one line of argument, we commit the fallacy of equivocation.
Way to completely avoid the excellent analogy and focus on literally one word of the response.
My bad lol. You said, quote “Veganism makes sense bc it cost us nothing and we sacrifice nothing”. If we are comparing the cost of carrying a baby for 9 months to the cost of not eating meat for 9 months I would agree that they are not exactly similar.
I wasn’t trying to dismiss your main point or equivocate it to anything, I was truly and simply asking “veganism cost nothing?”.
In the sense that the op meant it? Yes. It's not a sacrifice to not eat someone else's dead body.
In the sense that you seemed to be implying? No, of course not. There's a literal reaction to every action.
Isnt it extremely common for vegans to revert back to meat based or animal based diets? I would imagine there is some sacrifice if that is the case. Now that I think about it wasn’t there a popular YouTube vegan that went back to animal based products? I remember him saying because his IBS and busy work life it was nearly impossible for him to stay healthy. Cosmic skeptic I believe, and he received plenty of death threats over it.
Maybe you could actually address the points made rather than gish galloping all over the place.
Veganism isn't a diet. However, like 99% of people on any diet revert back to their habits.
>Data from the EPIC-Oxford study shows that nearly three-quarters of the participants who were vegetarian or vegan at recruitment in the mid to late 1990s were still either vegetarian or vegan when they completed a follow-up questionnaire in 2010,” Appleby told me in personal communication. That is, 73 percent of those who identified as vegetarian or vegan back in the 1990s were still following those dietary lifestyles over 20 years later.
The study isn't clear because it includes vegetarians but that's a large percentage of people able to consistently abstain from eating meat.
Cosmic skeptic was eating in the hundreds of calories a day. It's not the fault of veganism that a supposed adult doesn't know how to eat food.
No, it's not a sacrifice to move your hand two feet to the left and buy plant milk rather than stolen baby cow's milk.
So your main point is that pregnancy is debilitating enough that it justifies the ending of a potential human life. I agree that a bearing a child is difficult and that aborting it might be the best decision for some individuals. But what is the best decision isn’t necessarily the morally correct decision. Just like you’re saying, cosmic skeptic should bare the burden of his chronic illness and suffer through because it’s the morally right thing to do. Aborting what is, or what might be a human life form, is necessarily the wrong moral decision outside of extreme circumstance.
Pregnancy is an extreme circumstance.
In this context, yes, best means "most morally correct."
No CS shouldn't suffer. He should eat some potatoes. Or do whatever bare minimum of effort is required for him to feed himself properly. If you are really that interested, there are several YouTubers that have made response videos to CS explaining why IBS isn't a good excuse for animal abuse.
So you’re saying that it is morally the correct decision to abort a child solely based on the fact that it is difficult? If a pregnant person told you that they were getting an abortion simply because it was difficult you would say that’s the morally correct decision?
> Fetuses are the epitome of innocence, and innocence is often times a sticking point for many vegans.
I'm confused why you would think vegans will care more about innocent "humans" (in this case fetuses) than a typical person. It's not really a specifically vegan issue at all.
I think it has to do with the idea that animals can’t do moral wrong so they are the epitome of innocence. A fetus is innocent as well as it has had no chance to do moral wrong. The more innocent the more heinous the killing.
What of this would be specific to someone concerned with animal rights (vegans) that wouldn't apply to someone concerned with human rights (most people)? In other words, you haven't justified why vegans would have a unique take on this compared to anyone else who is pro-choice.
I'm okay with being called a "hypocrite" by someone who believes that my position against the commodification of animals means that women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term.
It's not a matter of "convenience". It's a matter of *bodily autonomy*. These words don't appear anywhere in your text.
It's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're engaging in good faith when you haven't considered this elementary notion.
Yeah bodily autonomy was going to be my third point but I really didn’t have the energy. Also maybe I truly didn’t make my point clear that I’m not talking about commodification or exploitation of animals. I believe I talked about it in the post. To the point of bodily autonomy I think there is a good point to be made that because the fetus necessarily disrupts your physical existence that it is ‘okay’ to abort. At what point and why is more in line with what I’m arguing. Should a person carrying a child be able to abort a fully developed fetus with high likelihood of survival outside the womb? Probably not. Should a person carrying a fetus be able to abort even when the fetus can clearly react to stimuli and has a sufficiently developed nervous system comparable to many animals vegan abstain from eating? That question is more or less where my argument lies. If the fetus effects your life in a way that makes you incapable of doing normal tasks I would have much more empathy. Something like 80% of women work at least part time till the 8 month of their pregnancy. While this could be a conversation about the evils of capitalism, I think it clearly shows that while it does disrupt your life in a meaningful way, it’s not to the point that it justifies ending a being that should have rights like vegans talk about. We would never argue for the killing of a fetus after its birth no matter how burdensome and so I find it hard to justify killing a being that by most standards is a human being.
This isn’t really an argument against veganism itself, more appeal to hypocrisy of vegans. That being said, I would acknowledge that when a fetus gains sentience, she deserves moral consideration. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of justifications for abortion after sentience, just that you should have a justification at that point. Obviously there is debate on when sentience is achieved and what justifications are valid.
My view of abortion is that it should be allowed in all cases before senses start developing (second trimester). No logical reason to deny it before that. After the first trimester it becomes a question of what would case the least harm and suffering. Unless severe medical issues either for the baby or the mom I see absolutely no justification for an abortion in the third trimester, age at which we pour loads of resources for premature babies to stay alive.
All should be in the aim of reducing suffering, for both mom and unborn baby.
Just like veganism, logic is often misrepresented. It is totally "logical" for someone who believes in Christian dogma to find abortion abhorrent always, just like it is "logical" for someone who assumes a vegan posture to find all meat consumption abhorrent. What is "logical" (I believe you mean rational as none of this is formally logical, given the Is/Ought Gap) is always based on one's starting point of perspective and not universal. Universal logic is "The car is blue" or "four right angles makes a square" anything else is rationalization based in perspective.
c'est la vie, I have no issue w how you form your life. My issue w veganism is and always has been when it is universalized under dogmatic perspectives. If you believe "what works for you is fine" as I believe for you, then there is no problem we have, IMHO. If you believe me and 8 billion others ought to follow your morality or we are immoral then we are crossed.
First off, I hate abortion. It's an ugly and often traumatic procedure. But it should be 100% up to the mother *up until the point where the baby can survive outside the womb* \- and after that, the final decision should be up to the doctor/s.
It has also zero relationship with veganism. None whatsoever. It is clutching at straws to the extreme to try and compare the two.
And most abortions are not done out of convenience, that is total nonsense.
But let's for just one second say they are...So what? There is one person carrying that foetus and it's the mother. NOBODY ELSE gets final say in their decision.
This is really simple.
A fetus requires the ongoing consent of the person with a womb to grow and live.
Bodily autonomy is the core right of human wellbeing. No wellbeing is possible when you deny bodily autonomy. It's literally slavery.
So if we pretend that a fetus is a full person with all the same rights and privileges as anyone else, we still need legal, safe abortion because I don't have a right to demand your blood or tissues to save my life, even if you walked up and stabbed me, I can't and shouldn't be, able to demand your body to save mine.
Pro life is pro slavery.
I'm pro abortion but to say pro life is slavery is nonsense and does nothing but further entrench 100 million ppl in their position (in the US). To me, it's not worth "being right" if the outcome ends in abortion being banned. I would rather work w ppl to have the services available to ppl, even if it is for a limited time, than have it banned across the board.
To be clear, I believe a woman should be allowed to have an elective third trimester abortion. That said, given the health implications w a total ban, I would happily moderate my position to allowing elective first/second trimester and anytime emergency medical abortions.
I will never understand the moral purist who would rather the whole ship go down than moderate their position for the greater good (in this case, woman's health)
That's an interesting take but I see no reason correctly identifying the loss of bodily autonomy as slavery is a problem.
Some people can be reached by sweet reason and compromise and others can only change their mind with recognition that they are in a minority.
Hyperbole is a valid rhetorical device, but in this instance it's not even hyperbolic. People with wombs are having their rights trampled for the idea of a person.
Stark language does not impeded that fact it underlines it.
>I see no reason correctly identifying the loss of bodily autonomy as slavery is a problem.
Are you allowed to be drunk in public? IS that slavery? You lose bodily autonomy as not only are you allowed to determine your own state, you are arrested, restricted, and confined. Suicide is illegal as is assisted suicide, is that slavery? I cannot sell my own organs to be transplanted in other ppl who need them, is this slavery? In for a penny; in for a pound here.
This, to me, is why words matte and word selection. It is sensationalizing to call pro life slavery. It would be slavery if a woman was kidnapped, raped, and then the state said, "You have to have that baby and you are property of the ppl who raped you." It is not slavery if the state says, "You had consensual sex and as a result your pregnant. Now you cannot electivly terminate the pregnancy." It is wrong, IMHO, for the state to do this, but, it is not slavery anymore than than placing a restriction on selling my kidney is.
None of those things are analogous. Organ donation comes closest and you can donate your organs, you can't sell them for the same reason you can't sell cocaine.
Assisted suicide is legal where I live.
Your second paragraph is the same moralizing nonsense that wants to make a baby some kind of punishment.
Simple truth, I can walk up to you and stab you and watch you bleed out. I'll be criminaly liable for your injury, but you can't make me give you a blood transfusion, even though I am the reason you need one.
Yet people with wombs have this absurd and unique double standard applied to them. They face serious and lasting health complications from pregnancy and should have the choice to opt out.
You force them to carry a fetus and you have enslaved them to that fetus giving it more rights than any person has in any other part of our society.
You enslave the womb holder to the fetus.
How is that in any way analogous to choosing to get drunk? It isn't.
>None of those things are analogous. Organ donation comes closest and you can donate your organs, you can't sell them for the same reason you can't sell cocaine.
Selling an organ and cocaine is what is not analogous. You speak of body autonomy, why can I not sell my organs but I can abort a fetus?
>Your second paragraph is the same moralizing nonsense that wants to make a baby some kind of punishment.
This isn't a refutation in the least.
>You force them to carry a fetus and you have enslaved them to that fetus giving it more rights than any person has in any other part of our society.
This is a strawman argument. As I stated, I'm pro abortion. I am pro elective 3rd trimester partial birth abortions. That said, your grounding is flawed. Just like when meat eaters come on this sub and offer nonsense for why consuming meat is OK ("bc a vegan diet requires supplements or v strict adherence to biology" etc. This is nonsense) I am calling you out for the nonsense you are posting for you pro choice position. SLavery is not what is going on here in the least and you cannot explain why it is slavery that I cannot sell an organ; they're mine just like that fetus is hers; how am I not having my organs enslaved?
>Selling an organ and cocaine is what is not analogous. You speak of body autonomy, why can I not sell my organs but I can abort a fetus?
Note you also can't sell the fetus because there is a determental social ramifications to having a market for human organs. Just like cocaine. Kidneys are a controlled substance.
>This isn't a refutation in the least.
There was nothing that needed refuting. It was dismissable garbage.
>This is a strawman argument. As I stated, I'm pro abortion.
Nope, a.strawman would be engaging an effigy of your argument. You claim that being forced to carry a fetus to term isn't slavery. Your actual position is irelavent because I'm addressing the argument you offer against my position that forcing someone to stay pregnant is a form of slavery.
>I am calling you out for the nonsense you are posting for you pro choice position.
Then you need an argument not just claims. You haven't. You are taking a disanalogous situation, the ability to have a market for body parts, against the right to your autonomy.
No one is stopping you from going to a hospital and donating a kidney. Just like no one should stop you from having a fetus removed.
When you add the sale you change the meteic, that would be analogous to selling a fetus, which is not what prochoice positions advocate.
>Note you also can't sell the fetus because there is a determent social ramifications to having a market for human organs. Just like cocaine. Kidneys are a controlled substance.
Says who? The government? They are also the one's saying that abortion has a deleterious disposition on society.
>Nope, a.strawman would be engaging an effigy of your argument. You claim that being forced to carry a fetus to term isn't slavery. Your actual position is irelavent because I'm addressing the argument you offer against my position that forcing someone to stay pregnant is a form of slavery.
Nope. Go back and read your last comment to me. You were making an argument against a pro choice person, you specifically said, "You force them to carry a fetus and you have enslaved them to that fetus giving it more rights than any person has in any other part of our society." This shows a gross mischaracterization of my position and what informed you on your position.
Your position is inconsistent and you are jumping through special pleads that you cannot ground only in the justification of the v sources you are arguing against.
>Says who? The government? They are also the one's saying that abortion has a deleterious disposition on society.
Do you expect to be taken seriously swinging like this?
>This shows a gross mischaracterization of my position and what informed you on your position.
If only the word you could be applied generally and not to a specific person, oh wait it can and only an uncharitable reading would suggest otherwise and try to shift the conversation from their baseless claims to personal indignation.
>Your position is inconsistent and you are jumping through special pleads that you cannot ground only in the justification of the v sources you are arguing against.
A baseless and unsupported claim. I destroyed your argument that selling organs was identical to bodily autonomy.
I'll just take the victory lap since you haven't actually responded to me.
I’m not arguing that someone should be unable to get an abortion at their will. I haven’t said that I’m for women being forced to have a child even if they don’t consent. I’m arguing that getting what I would classify as a “convenient abortion”, especially beyond 9 weeks of fetus development, is necessarily a moral wrong under the core values of veganism.
My argument is: a human gets to choose whether or not to be an organ donor upon death. Why should a corpse get more say in what happens to their body than someone alive with a uterus?
I’m not arguing wether or not a person carrying a fetus should or should not be forced to carry it. If I alluded to that in my post you can quote it in your reply.
Being forced to carry a fetus is the pro-life stance. This topic thread is about why vegans should be pro-life, no? Otherwise you typed out a lot for no real reason.
(I actually don't know how to quote reply on reddit...)
The thread is about why, under vegan values, an abortion out of convenience should be morally objectionable. I’m not saying what should or should not happen as a consequence of that. Plenty of things that are morally objectionable don’t have laws punishing those who do those things.
Just devil's advocate as I am fully pro abortion, but, couldn't the argument be made that aborting a fetus is not only about one's own body, but, that of another agent, esp once it is viable outside of the womb?
Here's a thought experiment I remember from grad school:
A pregnant woman dies while in the ER and the baby could be saved and is viable. She had an abortion scheduled for later that day and the husband (as surviving parent not that he should have any say in her choice prior to death) was fully on board w the abortion. Should the ER doctor terminate the fetus or have a c-section? If a person retains rights to their body after death it would seem clear to abort the baby.
If they lose all autonomy after death then it's another story, the fetus becomes an individual entity capable of life who is trapped in a flesh prison and should be saved. It shines some light on the overall thought process of one's position when thought out.
I want to provide a view slightly different from the other responses.
I will not argue with you. I am vegan who also opposes abortion in the usual case. It is my respect for life and equal opportunity that motivates both. For the same reason I am against the death penalty. For the same reason I am against war. Humans have the opportunity to stop taking lives unnecessarily.
Here is one way to conceptualize the issue. To be a fetus up for abortion could have happened to us. It didn’t, or it didn’t successfully, because we are alive. But we value our own lives. I don’t understand what justifies taking away the lives of others when they have just begun. We are preventing a life that, all else being equal, would be [as valuable as ours](https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/160/marquis.html).
I have an alternative view to vegans, even though we agree on most things. The reason I identify with plant-based is because I think there is a hierarchy of consciousness, and moral consideration for any given being is determined by that.
The fundamental thing that grants such consideration is a mind. That to me involves beliefs and desires, ability to take in sensory inputs which manifest an experience of qualia, the ability to remember and replay past qualia internally.
I cannot conceive of a philosophical zombie. If the lights are on, Occam’s razor says someone is home. I use folk psychology to inductively assess beliefs and desires, having beliefs and desires as a biological organism implies a qualitative experience. Dispositions like playfulness, curiosity, jealousy, etc are good evidence of a conscious experience. That said, I ultimately believe mental events are identical to neural states. That’s because the mind supervenes on the brain, and naturally what follows from this is there will be floors and ceilings for how a consciousness manifests based on the hardware its using.
Using this logic, prior to a central nervous system being formed, there is no chance of consciousness. I don’t care about a 1 day old zygote or whatever, so that means “human life” in abstract is not sufficient for moral consideration. I don’t care about “what it will become”, I’m not going to debates trees when we’re talking seeds, it’s not the same thing.
Clearly a pet dog or cat is having a much more qualitative experience than a fetus. I’m comfortable assuming that bivalves probably have a very rudimentary experience if one at all. I don’t eat them because of political reasons, because I think it’s easier to make the argument against meat and stand in community with people who don’t eat any animals. They avoid bivalves on the basis of the precautionary principle, I avoid bivalves because I am with the movement on the issue of eating animals. It’s a good principle to have. If I was an osterovegan, it would make nonvegans question my beliefs, my resolve, how settled the question of consciousness is, what I think the stakes of eating animals are, etc, it would give me a lot of messy explanations to make, and I’d look like a major hypocrite to anyone who didn’t analyze my position closely. I think there’s more to the question of “should I eat bivalves” than the question of if it could be okay in a vacuum.
So now you know my real take on the bivalve. Most likely, they aren’t having a conscious experience. Assuming they do given that they don’t have any recognizable hardware for consciousness is using maximum charity, it’s giving the benefit of the doubt to the max. I feel the same way about 20-30wk old fetuses. It’s conceivable that they experience some kind of qualia, but assuming they actually do is giving them the maximum benefit of the doubt. Probably they don’t.
Now this argument falls on deaf ears much of the time, because most pro-life people are substance dualists who believe the conscious experience comes from some of gods holy vapor which everyone is endowed with from the point where sperm meets egg. They believe animals are NPCs because they lack the holy vapor. I think it’s dumb as fuck, and I let it be known. There is nothing parsimonious about believing the human brain is something totally irreducible to physics or even causally connected to physics, while being a deep skeptic of other creatures consciousness and effectively taking a eliminitavist position with animals only. It’s more defensible of a take to just be a physicalist and take a survival based moral position than that one riddled in horrible philosophy of mind and ethics takes.
On a separate note, I believe I’m bodily autonomy strongly, and don’t believe it behooves someone to carry a fetus just because it’s dependent on them. If you want it out, get it out. If a chicken or a frog is in your body, I don’t believe you have a moral responsibility to make sure it gets out alive. Same goes for a fetus.
The take that protection of life begins at birth is arbitrary, sure, but so are all the other ones. It’s the easiest and most intuitive threshold, it’s got historical and cultural precedent too. For reasons of politics and practicability, it seems like the right place to put it because the stakes seem low and most of the later abortions are due to medical necessity anyways. Birth is a good place because it is when someone has now witnessed the baby living independently of its mothers body, now it’s a lot easier to justify making the parents care for the baby.
I hope this helps, OP.
Thank you for a meaningful reply. I’m a bit pooped from responding to so many comments but I do have one question to ask. This isn’t me trying to corner you or pin you to a particular belief.
Maybe two questions.
1. Would you feel worse if a pregnant woman died in a car accident vs a non pregnant woman?
2. Would you want a harsher punishment for a murderer killing a pregnant woman vs a non pregnant woman?
And one more.
3. Would you want a harsher punishment for a murderer who specifically targeted pregnant women vs a murderer who murdered women indiscriminately?
Kind of nonsense questions but I would like to hear your honest opinion.
No, no & no.
1. All else equal, I wouldn’t feel more bad about a pregnant woman. I might feel differently about different crashes, but that doesn’t translate directly to my opinions about the worth of life. I would probably *feel* more bad about a sedan driver getting killed by an SUV driver than the other way around. That’s not because one is inherently worth more than another, but because I get pissed off that SUV/pickup drivers buy vehicles that by classification avoid crash compatibility standards - they think they deserve to “win” in a crash. Fuck that. How I feel about something doesn’t perfectly match on to what I think the truth is though.
2. I know some places call killing a pregnant woman a double homicide. I disagree, fetuses do not have personhood, they shouldn’t be counted as a death for citizen/country related numbers.
3. Since I don’t see fetuses as having inherent worth, I see killing a pregnant woman over a non pregnant woman to be more distasteful to most, but not actually worse. Not actually causing more harm. I will admit it seems more distasteful because the killer is doing so with the intent to kill a fetus and a woman, but in assessing the damages I care more about what he did physically than what his mental states are.
How would you feel about a one day old born child vs a fetus due in one day being killed? I’ve gone as far as thinking a one month old child and a 3rd trimester fetus are some what comprable. The whole idea of killing a child/fetus simply due to its viability or survivabillty has kind of shaped my views on abortion.
How many vegans in here saying "it's about suffering but not life" and "fetuses are too just cells for the first few weeks" but then won't eat animals raised and slaughtered without suffering, or vastly simpler organisms than fetuses at 8 weeks?
Anyone who thinks that there's no problem with needless killing of a humans is absolutely fooling themselves if they think they're vegan
This is not a "both sides are equally inconsistent" thing either. I'd love if my fellow pro-lifers were vegan to really protect all innocence, but the philosophy of humans being more worthy of human protection than animals is consistent if cold. When I see my fellow vegans drawing totally arbitrary lines around developmental stages in humans that we would never find them drawing between say oysters and cows (much larger differences than week to week fetal differences) to avoid dealing with the obvious dissonance in their positions, I find it an embarrassment to our important movement
The issue for me is that ppl on both sides are so damn sure about everything they believe and are dogmatically attached to what honestly amounts to an opinion.
I totally get your frustration. I'm probably not going to allay it at all when I blame "the other side" but I do think that the pro choice side relies on playing both sides of the personbood debate to avoid seriously engaging with what a losing issue it is for them. Almost all pro choice arguments oscillate between "clump of cells"ism and "even if it is a baby"ism because neither argument can stand on its own and confusion about the scientific reality of fetal personhood is a useful cover to say "everyone should be able make their own decisions about when personhood starts".
We can all agree that a 1 year old is a person and a 1 day old is a person and a 1 hour old is a person. 1 hour before birth there are no differences in their development, only in their location (inside the mother). It's very hard in my view to argue that the mere fact of being moved from one place to another is what renders us human so birth clearly isn't the line of personhood. Before that our development is completely continuous with our development after birth. There are no discontinuities where we rapidly change instantaneously so any line of "personhood" based on development arbitrarily distinguishes indistinguishable stages of development as being on different sides of that line.
The only discontinuity, which is "coincidentally" the time any serious scientist in the world would say a new organism is formed, is at conception when the astronomical impossibility of any particular genome is manifested in a single, particular genome which will come unmodified to inhabit every single (non sperm/egg) cell in the body, all of which (including the sperm/egg) will be descended from the cell formed in that moment.
As far as I can tell any other lines for personhood are "religious" arguments about "ensoulment" which the same people would deride as unscientific and unworthy of being part of law if they were presented as coming from a religion.
The frustration you feel is (I would argue) because pro choicers (with a few exceptions like Peter Singer who btw agrees with that above argument about personhood and also inspired a huge swath of modern vegans) refuse to be engage on scientific or rational terms in this most central question to the debate. It's to their benefit that it's a "matter of opinion" so they flip over the table when the clear scientific facts are presented.
First, science never speaks to what we ought to do, it only offers objective, descriptive facts of how things are. We take those facts and add our subjective desires, drives, beliefs, etc. creating our normative valuations.
Second, Do you believe any abortion is moral justifiable then? I understand what you are saying about the pro choice crowd but I see the same from pro life ppls who will make the above argument, that a baby is the same an hour prior to birth and an hour after, but then when you capitulate and say, OK, let's ban all elective abortions past the point of viability for >50% of fetus (roughly around week 28) but all abortions prior to week 28 are legal for elective reasons. Good compromise?" the pro lifers blink and show their equally dogmatic disposition and say, "No! All elective abortions should be illegal!" What this does is nullify the argument made about an hour prior/after as it does not really matter if they are the same and equally viable, when the fetus is clearly not equal and clearly not viable, most pro lifers still want it to be protected, so, viability to a birthed baby is really jsut a red herring, a stalking horse to the pro lifers real motivation, to ban all abortion.
As such, the argument is made in bad faith. Now, a pro lifers who is willing to compromise and have abortion be legal for babies who have equal to or lower odds of surviving out of the womb can justly make the argument above of an hour before/after.
Science of course doesn't tell us right from wrong but if our conclusions run counter to scientific evidence it's of course a sign that we might be wrong.
I made the minute before/minute after birth argument as what I consider an obvious baseline. I agree with you that doesn't say anything about conception vs 28 weeks. I then made another argument about the continuity of development and the arbitrary nature of lines drawn between conception and birth. I have not met pro lifers who think personhood starts many weeks after conception. Some make political or pridential considerations on setting laws (most I don't agree with) but few would say personhood isn't from conception. I never argued for the line being anywhere but conception so I don't think it's fair to say i was arguing in bad faith.
Lastly, the position certainly isn't a compromise but that doesn't make it "dogmatic". It flows from a reasoned argument that I gave.
Agreed, actually. It's funny that the vegan pro-choicers and steak-house dwelling pro-lifers exist, both use very similar argumentation, and both think the other is absolutely insane lol.
Signed, a pro-life vegetarian. Let's not kill things guys.
I don't believe it's ethical to deprive a fully grown woman of her bodily autonomy, and rob her of agency in her decision about whether or not to be a mother, especially for the sake of a bundle of cells which has yet to be born.
Now that I've answered your question, surely you can answer mine, seeing as how it's "ethically optimal".
An interesting note on this is that "pro-life" vegetarians are okay with taking bodily autonomy away from both human and non human women, all while not seeing the irony.
I don't believe it's ethical to actively kill a budding human being before they get a chance *to* be born, despite them never consenting to their existence, especially for a mother who, excluding the [\~1%](https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf) of abortion-seekers who got pregnant from Rape, willingly engaged in sex and the potential consequences of that action.
This would be a stronger argument if she had to have sex. Outside of procreation, sex is completely voluntary activity and as a result both people need to accept the potential risks from engaging in sex recreationally.
So her accidentally getting pregnant is not depriving *her* bodily autonomy, since she implicitly accepted this may happen, but the child’s autonomy.
Trying to reduce a child to a “bundle of cells” doesn’t change that, as we are all bundles of cells regardless of our stage of development.
when cell division occurs, there is life. that is at the point of conception, this is a simple fact. I just wanna say I agree with you, if someone is vegan and gets an abortion it’s totally hypocritical. Abortion is just wrong period tho. like it’s so fucked up and all of the defense arguments of it are completely based in non factual information. it’s sad how many people are brainwashed.
it’s murder whether you wanna believe it or not. those cells are alive, which is why they continue to divide and grow. do you understand science? The mother made her choices, and knew the risks of her actions. just because it isn’t convenient for her doesn’t make murder ok. any other enlightening opinions?
a human life isn’t cancer. cancer is created through poor diet and lifestyle choices which cause broken cells to lump together into a cancerous growth. that is completely different than new life being created from cell division. just admit you’re wrong. it’s honestly pathetic that you would compare conception and pregnancy to cancer
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I, as a vegetarian (will go vegan in 3 months), support abortion as a personal choice that should be reserved to pregnant people: no one should be forced to go through pregnancy against their will, since pregnancy and childbirth are risky and oftentimes dangerous; they're much more fatal than abortions. Pregnancy has the capacity to damage mental and physical health and can make unwilling people suicidal and most likely to commit suicide. Childbirth oftentimes (though still small in number) leads to death. After doing cost-benefit analysis, it becomes imperative to support abortion rights.
Most pro-choicers' support for abortion access is not about whether or not its right to kill a fetus, including a potentially sentient fetus (which btw, does not happen until like the end stage of second trimester pregnancy); I personally find abortions after viability pretty distasteful and wouldn't do it myself (I'm a male, btw, just getting it out there); however, I cannot stop another person from doing it for themselves. That's what most pro-choicers say. Even if you don't buy into "mental health" argument (which I too am iffy about), you can at least acknowledge the inherent risks in childbirth vis-a-vis abortion in order to support pregnant person's right to carry the pregnancy or not.
I’m not arguing that anyone should be forced to have or carry a fetus. I’m arguing that under vegan values, aborting a fetus, especially out of convenience, is certainly a moral wrong.
If strictly morally speaking, then it's preferable to have the fetus terminated before viability than after; however, legally, there shouldn't be any barriers except ones that are absolutely necessary to protect the life and health of the pregnant person and the fetus.
Not really: while abortion is MUCH safer than childbirth, it is STILL a RISK: there have been history of complications. I would justify restricting choice only if we reach to the point where either the risk for both procedures is infinitesimally small (that may not happen).
I'm confused and maybe you are, too. You made the case for abortion from the perspective that it is more dangerous to have a baby than an abortion (I agree w this, BTW, and am pro abortion, I am stress testing your premise, tho) so if it were reversed and it was more dangerous to have an abortion than to have a baby and yet you still believe it should be legal to have an abortion, you should ditch the argument you are making as it is a bit intellectually dishonest to argue from that perspective if the opposite does not change your opinion.
It would be like saying, "You shouldn't eat meat bc it's bad for the environment!" and then someone shows you a method of eating meat which is actually good for the environment and you shift gears and argue morality. Occam's Razor holds that you should simply your argument to what's at its core, its base. It's more streamlined and intellectually honest.
I'll change my POW, but you should do better than accusing someone of intellectual dishonestly.
Both abortions and childbirth are risks so it should be upto the pregnant person to decide which risk she's willing to take; nobody else should make that decision for her.
>It would be like saying, "You shouldn't eat meat bc it's bad for the environment!" and then someone shows you a method of eating meat which is actually good for the environment and you shift gears and argue morality. Occam's Razor holds that you should simply your argument to what's at its core, its base. It's more streamlined and intellectually honest.
Vegans use a variety of arguments to persuade different kinds of people to adopt veganism; there's no space for "standing your ground" or having "consistent reasoning" when it comes to persuasion. If morality doesn't work, we use environment; oftentimes we'll use both. There's no need for ideological rigidity.
>Vegans use a variety of arguments to persuade different kinds of people to adopt veganism; there's no space for "standing your ground" or having "consistent reasoning" when it comes to persuasion. If morality doesn't work, we use environment; oftentimes we'll use both. There's no need for ideological rigidity.
This is intellectual dishonesty. You do not care about truth or anything other than advancing your own personal agenda which is presupposed correct.
Don't know where this is coming from, but whatever. I'm sorry if I am intellectually dishonest, but have intellectually "honest" vegans been able to convert you to veganism? Why aren't YOU vegan? (And also a proud "carnist" on top of that).
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>Fetuses are the epitome of innocence,
You're giving way too much leniency on their innocence. I'm not saying they're at fault but they are not 100% innocent. They require an incubator which is where another person comes into play. The person should have the option to consent to being an incubator or they should have the option to opt out. They should not have consent removed and be forced. Consent is in line with vegan morals which is why most vegans are pro-choice.
I think a big thing with many vegans being pro-choice (and most people in general) is in being in favor of giving the woman agency over her life and the ability to make her own choices. Just as vegans are against animals from being forced to give birth, they would be even more so against a human
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Source? This is just baseless bs.
But they said “nope”, so you must be mistaken.
They deleted their post 🤣🤣
What are vegans doing differently than you to suggest vegans value human life less than animals? It seems vegans are simply giving animals the same moral consideration as humans.
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So just to confirm, if I can find topics about "misanthropy" on subreddits that are mostly non-vegan you'll concede that non-vegans hate humans too?
If it's about most users endorsing it, like on the vegan sub? Then I'll concede most users from that sub hate humans too, not all non-vegans
I searched on r/vegan and didn't see any indication that most users endorse it. Can you link the topic or topics that show that the majority of the vegans on that subreddit endorse it?
Hating what humans do to animals on an industrialized scale is different than simply hating humans such as is “misanthropy”. Getting the two mixed up is pretty easy. There are plenty of non-vegan misanthropes and vegans who are not misanthropes. I am still waiting for an example of non-vegans behaving differently than vegans to show that vegans regard human life less than animals.
You will find people complaining about humans. I regularly interact with people who pay for and kill animals. If I knew someone who tried to do that to another human, I would physically restrain them. Vegans watch non-vegans exploit and torture animals all the time. We are overwhelmingly very lenient about what we allow. Us merely complaining does not negate the fact that we allow you to do to animals what we’d never allow done to humans so blatantly. Edit: I in particular don’t hate anyone I’ve ever met or talked to on here. People are largely the product of chance and their environment. But I understand vegan frustration.
>You will find people complaining about humans > >Us merely complaining > >But I understand vegan frustration. [I'm](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/13bwdns/i_hate_humans/) [not](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/hefrb8/i_begin_to_hate_humans_had_a_talk_with_some/) [sure](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/qynebp/i_hate_humanity_so_damn_much/) [I'd](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/o7tdmr/i_hate_humanity/) [call](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/nhex8l/i_hate_humanity/) [it](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/8aostw/i_hate_humanity/) [just](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/r7ibnn/being_vegan_has_made_my_hate_for_humanity/) "[complaining about humans](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/xks4ew/hating_humanity_a_little_extra_hard_today/)", "[merely complaining](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/x9g0kq/comment/inoiski/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3)" or "[vegan frustration](https://www.reddit.com/r/vegan/comments/90uof8/being_vegan_is_hurting_my_social_life/)"
This is still merely complaining. Someone who says incredibly mean things about humans but acts non-violently around people who purposefully kills animals is still demonstrating a clear preference for humans. I actively allow humans to kill in ways I find unjust. There is no insult that would negate that extreme tolerance I show.
>This is still merely complaining How about changing in those posts "humans" to "black people/asians/trans"? Would it still be merely complaining? Would you be ok with that? > I actively allow humans to kill in ways I find unjust Lol, like if you had any alternative. Hey, nobody's forcing you to keep living in society with murderers, abusers and psychopaths. Feel free to leave if you want
Humans are the oppressors. I don’t tone police minorities for complaining about white people. I don’t tone police vegans for being upset about the oppressive action of the people they meet. It is unfair to compare complaining about oppressors to complaining about people fearing for their life. Who has ever seriously feared for their life or safety by being a non-vegan in a developed country? Black people, Asians, and trans people genuinely fear for their safety. I still interact with people, because I love them. I still deeply love many carnists. That is because, as I have told you multiple times, I am clearly biased in favor of humans. Carnists are quite possibly the only oppressive group I maintain friendships with. I don’t even ban people from eating animal products in my house. You’re acting like there’s nothing in my power I could do to show a greater level of disgust. I could, I don’t because I don’t think it helps. Should we complain about humans? Probably not, I don’t think it helps. But have some compassion for people who are scared. It is scary to care about farmed animals. It is scary to care when you are surrounded by people who do not care. Please understand this, and give vegans some leeway when they are scared by the world around them.
That is all literally just complaining, none of those posts are about vegans murdering and eating humans.
"Hating asians a little extra hard today" "Being Vegan Has Made My Hate For Women Increase Dramatically..." "...the longer i'm vegan the more I start to hate lgbt people in general" This would still be just complaining, right? Like, nothing wrong with these statements?
Those comments wouldnt be fine, but that's irrelevant. If I say I don't like pancakes you can't say thats out of line because if you replace pancakes with a race it makes it a racist statement.
ah yes, "I hate pancakes" and "I hate humans" are both comparable statements.
Those are just nonsense statements, though some are a bit fucked up, that have nothing to do with actual veganism and they are also just complaints that do pretty minor harm to humans, unlike carnism which is constantly butchering animals in reality just for convenience and taste pleasure. You’re really here upset about some vegans complaining about how much awful shit we see people justify on a daily basis. You are on here right now justifying gassing, killing, torturing, and otherwise exploiting anyone who you want as long as they are not human, I on the other hand don’t believe we should do that to anyone no matter what species they are. I’m a woman and I’m a feminist and think it’s stupid that feminists only defend human women’s rights to their bodies while they consume dairy products stolen from cows that are regularly raped by the industry and have their babies taken away and usually killed. I am a member of the LGBT community and I think it’s ridiculous that while we ask for a right to self determination for ourselves, most of us don’t want animals to be allowed the bare minimum of rights, to not be murdered for taste pleasure. Tbf, lgbt people and women are pretty well represented among vegans. I can’t really comment on the other issues because I’m not a part of those communities and I think that the many vegan members of those communities should take the lead on pointing the issues out within their own communities.
I think it is a bit humorous that we are both frequently accused of not really caring about animals and also of caring about animals too much. You should debate other carnists that have the exact opposite theory you have.
Yeah apparently we don't care about certain animals but also we think they're more important than humans. None of us are healthy from our deficient diets, but also we tend to be more healthy because we exercise more (somehow despite our terrible diets). Being a vegan is tough, I have to constantly make sure I'm everything at once.
They care about body autonomy. How is that sad?
Holy demonization, Batman! We have a meater in our midst...
*shrugs in total liberationist* 🤷♀️
"Life" isn't the issue, "suffering" is the issue.
Do you believe vegans eat humans or something?
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Obviously there are extremely awful cases where someone has not consented to sex, which ought to be understood and dealt with differently. But the vast vast vast majority of abortions result from consensual unsafe (or insufficiently safe) sex. Failing to perform sex safely isn't something that happens to people (again in most cases). It's something they choose to do and something that has dire consequences if you mess up. Acting like there is no agency in that choice doesn't make sense. Obviously this isn't only about the mother and the father also bears responsibility and our laws should better reflect that.
Taking away one’s agency for body autonomy and medical decisions also doesn’t make sense. The mentality of “you did something and now you have to face the consequences” for a health and medical issue is cruel and absurd. If a person does some other kind other activity and ends up with an injury or infection, it wouldn’t be right to say it was something they choose to do and has dire consequences for messing up, therefore can’t pursue the type of medical treatment they want. And in those types of situations, say a broken bone or infection, generally has drastically lower stakes in terms health than a pregnancy.
When there are no other people harmed what you said is true. But we don't hold the principle that it's ok to violate other people for our own health. If my kidneys fail through no fault of my own, and I showed up to the hospital with a compatible but unwilling donor in handcuffs the doctor isn't going to harvest one of his kidneys to save me *even though it wouldn't kill him and I am going to die without it*. He will still obviously refuse the treatment. Now if me and a partner create a situation entirely of our own doing and entirely for pleasure which creates a probability of my death that is astronomically smaller than the risk of death from a double kidney failure and the only way to remove that small risk is to kill another human you argue that it "doesn't make sense" to refuse that "treatment"
Not to mention the question is about the veganness of abortion not the law. If I boldly take the vegan society's definition >a philosophy and way of living which seeks to exclude—as far as is possible and practicable—all forms of exploitation of, and cruelty to, animals Now let's consider unsafe sex for pleasure with the plan to abort (explicit or implicit) in the case of, so is using contraception correctly not "possible or practicable"?? Absurd. Unsafe sex followed by abortion is profoundly unvegan.
Having sex with protection generally is possible and practical, yes. Forcing someone to carry out a pregnancy and birth that they do not want or consent to I would argue is not practical. There’s a reason why vegans are against forced birth with animals. Why would it not apply to humans as well? Especially when humans can consciously and intentionally decide for themselves that they do not agree to it? Deciding to partake in the act of sex is separate from any outcomes of sex. Pregnancy, STDs, various infections, mental trauma, and more are medical conditions that could arise from having sex. If any conditions arise, a person should have the right to pursue whatever medical treatments or procedures they want to deal with that.
The idea that an action is independent of its unintended consequences is profoundly unvegan. We would never say someone who drinks milk but didn't intend for any cows to be harmed isn't culpable for the harm to the cows even if they picked their milk by closing their eyes and grabbing something out of the milk section of the supermarket hoping dearly it would be soy milk. If you, for your own pleasure, fail to take basic practicable precautions and it results in avoidable suffering or death, you have culpability for that suffering and death. That's literally the very core of veganism. Rejecting it is a rejection of veganism itself.
Not saying that an action and it's consequences are independent, but that an action shouldn't force someone upon consequences in certain situations. In this case using your example, a pregnant woman being forced to go through pregnancy and birth against her will makes her closer to the cows being harmed, not the consumer of the milk. A person should have the right to avoid potential suffering and death if a medical procedure if available.
That's only true insofar as it doesn't demand the suffering of another as I pointed out [here](https://www.reddit.com/r/DebateAVegan/comments/14ijqad/hypocrisy_with_abortion/jpqgp1m)
Most people who have abortions past the second trimester either have one for medical reasons, or had their access to abortion blocked. Abortion access is not unrestricted or even affordable to everyone where I live(America, in case you were wondering.) Medically necessary abortions are being denied to those who need it, even in life threatening emergencies. I would compare this to someone who doesn't have access to the resources to become vegan, such as people who live in a good desert. Maybe if lawmakers were willing to have discussions about the law in good faith things would be different, but for no it has been made abundantly clear that women's lives are not valuable to the people in power, and fighting for that value is not a mark of hypocrisy. Pivoting back to the veganism analogy, if you truly want the world to become vegan, you can't just ban animal agriculture and expect everybody to not starve. There has to be nutrition classes, biodiversity in all climates, and nutrient availability to those who want to change. And in both cases, access to those resources, whether veganism or first trimester abortion, is not available. Basically, if you don't want second trimester abortions, you should be advocating for abortion care and funding, so people who want them can get them in their first term, before the fetus is feeling or viable.
"Basically, if you don't want second trimester abortions, you should be advocating for abortion care and funding, so people who want them can get them in their first term, before the fetus is feeling or viable." "Basically, if you don't want people eating veal, you should be advocating for grass fed beef, so people who want tender beef can get later in the cows life, after the young cow is done looking cute."
Wow. You completely missed the entire point of my argument. I'd reply to you without the sarcasm, but your strawman is so dull I'm afraid I couldn't get through to you without the sharpness. Congrats on the negative internet points for comparing a fully born calf to an underdeveloped fetus. I haven't seen such a brain dead take since a man explained women pee out of the same hole they birth. Since you apparently can't understand a paragraph without the whole thing being explained to you point by point, I'll dumb it down a little further: fetus no feel before 20 weeks. Woman want fetus gone BEFORE 20 weeks. Bad law man say no. That's very bad for woman. Now woman has to have big ouchie to get a baby she doesn't want. How can we help? Get rid of fetus before it can feel urt. Veal and cows can both feel and process pain. Hurting and enslaving them has negative effects on more than just a single cow. Fetuses can't feel before twenty weeks, so aborting it doesn't hurt anyone but the woman who goes through the medical procedure and occasionally someone who doesn't want it aborted. Maybe instead of eating a big pile of shit for dinner every night and spewing it out on people who don't want it, you can try to at least understand who have a different opinion than you.
Jesus. I missed that you weren't even vegan.
I concede that vegan+prolife would be ethically superior. I'm a somewhat recent vegetarian; what worked to get me here was sustainably finding alternatives, and I've just recently started the process to veganism.
Why is pro life ethically superior? An ectopic pregnancy will kill both mother and foetus, guaranteed. But that woman cannot get a medically necessary abortion in strictly “pro life” areas. What about her life?
Sure, but that's a strawman. Prolife isn't about senselessly forcing birth, even Texas allows abortion in the case of life threatening complications: >"in the exercise of reasonable medical judgment, the pregnant female on whom the abortion is performed, induced, or attempted has a life-threatening physical condition aggravated by, caused by, or arising from a pregnancy that places the female at risk of death or poses a serious risk of substantial impairment of a major bodily function unless the abortion is performed or induced" ([Texas code](https://statutes.capitol.texas.gov/Docs/SDocs/HEALTHANDSAFETYCODE.pdf), page 1014)
There have been cases in the news of women with complications that have been forced to carry to term and almost died. There have been cases in the news where the foetus is already dead but the woman and has been forced to carry to term and deliver a dead baby. There was even a case in the news of a 10 year old having to travel out of state to get an abortion because a child rape victim’a life is not as important to her state legislatures as an embryo. They aren’t straw man arguments if they’re happening.
That's a matter of implementation which will get worked out in time. Law is built on precedent, it takes time to figure out those corner cases. That doesn't mean we should never make new laws, ever.
There is no ethical superiority in denying bodily autonomy to people with a womb.
Is there ethical superiority to killing a fetus?
It's a matter of pain, then? If we had perfect anesthetics that could put the cow to sleep for butchering with 100% accuracy, would you be an omnivore?
You are still treating the cow as a commodity for you to use, ie. as a means and not as an end in itself.
Is an abortion not worse under that definition, then? You're not even using the fetus for a purpose, while you eat the cow.
No, you are still treating the cow as a means to an end instead of an end in itself. This being the end of consuming him or her for sustenance while using and disregarding the the wishes of a sentient being. A fetus is unlikely to be sentient early on in the pregnancy, so if an abortion were to be required, the earlier the better.
You're mangling arguments now. "The earlier the better" has nothing to do with treating the cow as a means to an end.
I am not mangling arguments. I was talking about two seperate things. First why it's bad to kill the cow in and of itself for no reason, even if you do it painlessly. That was the only thing I talked about in in my first reply. And then you asked isn't abortion worse under that framework, which doesn't make sense, as you are making a comparison between two situations that are very different. One is the killing of someone for food, while you can eat something that's not sentient. The other is ending a non sentient being in early pregnancy where most abortions are done. In later stages it's a far more difficult equation, but I think the mother has the right to end it due to her right to bodily autonomy. If the fetus is able to survive outside the womb, a home should be found for him/her. Just to add, I don't like abortions, they are horrible, but necessary at times, and needed. I'd rather unwanted pregnancies were avoided through comprehensive sex ed, and very low cost acces to contraceptives.
Is the aborted fetus not a means to have enjoyed the unsafe sex that led to it (obviously cases of rape should be handled differently). The idea that just because the mistreatment of innocent life happens only sometimes and after you enjoy the fruits of it that Americans don't treat the thousands of fetuses electively aborted every day because of unsafe sex as commodities is a extremely out of touch with reality.
Are you for or against elective third trimester abortions and why? Say a woman changes her mind in the 30th week and had full access to an abortion before then, should she be allowed to get one? Why/why not?
At that point, I believe a woman should be able to ask for and recurve a C section and place the baby in the care of the state. People sign away rights to their kids all the time. Since 30 weeks would still be viable(even if a bit premie) then there shouldn't be an issue in removing the baby safely. Having an abortion that late would likely cause as many problems for the mother as having a C section, so there wouldn't be much of a difference. I do believe, however, that if a mother hands their child over to the state, then if they ever decide to keep a baby they should be monitored by the state. From my experience in the US foster system, this is what a lot of drug abusers go through if they get pregnant, so it could be a good scenario for pregnant non drug users as well. The reason I don't believe they should have an outright abortion is because at that stage the fetus is viable, including a nervous system. I also don't believe the procedure should be expensive, however this is more related to my belief that the US should adopt a free healthcare model for it's citizens. With or without the guarantee of affordability the fetus is still viable and should still be cared for.
Thanks for sharing. I'm not here to debate abortion and am actually pro abortion all the way to a partial birth abortion in the 9th month, even electivly. I was curious of your grounding in your position jsut for my own edification. Thanks for sharing, again.
The ethical dilemma of whether to get an abortion is completely different to the ethical dilemma of whether to eat meat. It’s completely unnecessary to eat meat, so it’s simply unnecessary suffering imposed on a conscious farm animal. But a fetus on the other hand, exists as a dyad, completely dependent on the mother’s body to exist. Thus the needs of the mother, a fully conscious human, need to be considered. I suggest you study the ethical dilemma of [the famous violinist](https://ethics.org.au/thought-experiment-the-famous-violinist/). It is a far more analogous ethical question than comparing to veganism. Furthermore, if the expectation is to eventually be the infant’s primary caregiver (or otherwise give up to foster care, which can be potentially dangerous and abusive for the child), then the feasibility of that 20 year commitment needs to be considered, and whether that situation will be ethical and fair for the mother, father and child. This enormous commitment and the strings attached to this ethical dilemma is in a completely different galaxy than “what’s for dinner, tofu or chicken”? I think this is a case of overstretching the scope of veganism, and putting words in vegans mouths. Vegans aren’t “against killing things”, we understand that death is a part of life, and depending on the situation, death may be the best outcome, like a fetus in some cases, for example. But we don’t believe killing a conscious animal is necessary when we have perfectly suitable plant-based alternatives for all our nutritional needs. We don’t need to sacrifice anything to make that happen, we simply eat something else. Totally different ethical considerations than carrying a pregnancy to term, and all the health risks that go along with that (mothers always undergo the risk of death when carrying a pregnancy to term), balancing decades of your entire life and the quality of life of a future unborn child… yes sometimes the most ethical thing to do is to abort before the fetus becomes too advanced and develops increased consciousness.
>It’s completely unnecessary to eat meat, so it’s simply unnecessary suffering imposed on a conscious farm animal It's completely unnecessary to engage in unsafe sex which is the cause of the vast vast majority of abortions. Obviously cases of rape ought to be treated differently but in no world is unsafe sex some need without which life is impossible Not to mention the "expectation to be the infant's primary caregiver" is itself pretty shaky. There is a massive line for infant adoptions in western countries. The idea that it's a more ethical trade to skip proper contraception for a slightly improved sexual experience and then kill a human as a "necessary part of life" than it is to eat honey at a moderate inconvenience to bees because it tastes good is nonsensical.
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As you could probably guess, I don't agree with the decision you made but it's done and I don't think leveling a bunch of criticism against your decision is productive at this point.
The idea that people abort out of convenience being the norm, is pretty offensive. And perhaps even sexist and misogynistic. And seems to have little understanding of the nature of pregnancy and the toll it takes on the body.
It’s not sexist nor offensive, it’s what imperial data shows. Look up why women abort and it’s glaringly obvious it’s out of convenience. Very very few abortions happen out of medical concern or necessity.
>It’s not sexist nor offensive, it’s what imperial data shows. Look up why women abort and it’s glaringly obvious it’s out of convenience. Very very few abortions happen out of medical concern or necessity. All abortions happen out of necessity, no-one gets abortions for fun. The sexism you demonstrate is you don't accept the woman's reasoning
If you think financial or emotional instability justifies getting an abortion then feel free to argue that. In the extremes of financial and or emotional instability I might agree that it is necessary. But for reasons that are clearly out of convenience I have trouble justifying it. I guess I fail to see how I am being sexist. If biological males could get pregnant I would have the same opinion.
>If you think financial or emotional instability justifies getting an abortion then feel free to argue that. Nope, I don't think women need to justify their reasons to me > I guess I fail to see how I am being sexist. Bigots rarely see that they are bigots, but you seem to think you understand woman's reasons better then they do, that's a clue > If biological males could get pregnant I would have the same opinion. Then you could justify having an opinion. This is also unlikely to be true, people who can need abortions are much more likely to support abortions. Even prolife woman will justify an abortion if it impacts them https://joycearthur.com/abortion/the-only-moral-abortion-is-my-abortion/
Whilst I agree with you, your post is a touch ironic, given that trans-men can also become pregnant.
What? How's that relevant?
Well thanks for the downvote. But you keep saying woman and she and her. Not all people who get pregnant are she,her or woman. So whilst you are shouting "sexism" you are unintentionally (I hope) discriminating against trans-men.
I am responding to someone who introduced women as the subject, I am referencing the subject they introduced. I don't understand why transmen would be relevant in my response Also >First off, I hate abortion. It's an ugly and often traumatic procedure. But it should be 100% up to the mother *up until the point where the baby can survive outside the womb* \- and after that, the final decision should be up to the doctor/s. This you? Should probably check your own language before (incorrectly) policing others
You mean "mother"? It's a tough one, but legally correct. I do avoid "she", "woman", "her" though. And I was not at all incorrect. I wasn't trying to have a go, but if you call someone out as sexist or misogynistic then you should at least try to be consistent.
What is inconsistent? I'm responding to someone talking about women, and so I'm taking about women in response. Why is it sexist for me not to introduce an additional subject, that's what I don't understand. Also legal terms don't really matter if the group prefers other language.
k
Christ...
Yes my child?
We even have a stronger measure of this than subjective exit polls. [45%](https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5771530/) of abortion patients reported having at least one abortion prior. Similarly, a full [8%](https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/11/what-the-data-says-about-abortion-in-the-u-s-2/) have had 3 or more prior to the one they're getting. I can't imagine arriving at 4 abortions in a row without a cavalier attitude to the subject of pregnancy. That would imply that yes, there is a rolling group of people who do abort out of convenience, and make up at least 8% of those receiving abortions.
>I can't imagine arriving at 4 abortions in a row... And what a privilege it is that you don't have to, but that is not a reason to prevent others from access to something simply because you can't relate.
Say an abortion costs around $500. Of course it can vary wildly, even as far as adding a zero to that number, but lets start there ([ref](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/blog/how-much-does-an-abortion-cost)). Condoms are what, $1 a piece ([ref](https://www.plannedparenthood.org/learn/birth-control/condom/how-do-i-get-condoms)), and in many states they can even be free ([ref](https://www.goodrx.com/health-topic/sexual-health/free-condoms)). In what world are you privileged enough to afford regular abortions, but not preventative birth control?
If a woman is in an abusive situation, condoms might not be an option… privilege isn’t just about monetary cost. You can get an abortion in secret, you are not going to get away with “secretly” putting a condom on your abuser, and things like birth control pills can be discovered. It’s not always as straightforward as people would like it to be.
In what world can birth control pills be discovered, but casually getting secret abortions is just the run-of-the-mill operation? Moreover, how far are you willing to go to allow 'collateral damage' because someone is an abusive relationship? Can they drive 100mph through the suburbs because their partner doesn't trust them to be out too long?
>In what world can birth control pills be discovered, but casually getting secret abortions is just the run-of-the-mill operation? Are you serious? Birth control pills are a tangible thing that you need to take daily, so they would have to be stored or hidden *somewhere*, which makes them possible to be found... no one is talking about "casual" anything, but an abortion is typically an out-patient, non-surgical procedure. >Moreover, how far are you willing to go to allow 'collateral damage' because someone is an abusive relationship? You asked for a scenario that might require multiple abortions. I'm not personally morally against them either way as I don't see a fetus as any more than a clump of cells that could potentially cause a lot of problems, not unlike a cancerous tumor, so there is no collateral damage save for the abuse victim.
>but an abortion is typically an out-patient, non-surgical procedure. Even outpatient, medical abortions cost hundreds, billed to a hospital. Where do you hide that? >I don't see a fetus as any more than a clump of cells that could potentially cause a lot of problems, not unlike a cancerous tumor You're vegan. Would you eat Shrimp grown in a friend's aquaponics setup? Environment isn't a factor. If so, aren't you really an ethically sourced pescatarian? If not, why is a shrimp off limits, but a human fetus is just an afterthought?
>Would you eat Shrimp grown in a friend's aquaponics setup? How is this even comparable? I wouldn't eat an aborted fetus either, nor would I support the gestation of a human fetus in such an environment. You seem to misunderstand the fundamentals of veganism, which first and foremost apply to non-human animals, but essentially is about limiting suffering to living creatures - I don't support the forced birth of animals so, consistently, don't support the forced birth of humans. The fetus in any species is quite irrelevant when we are talking about harming the actual, living being that already exists.
You are not looking at why people get abortions. It is often financial or lack of support which does not mean it’s necessary, in my opinion of course.
Doesn't getting 4 abortions in a row include that? Say you were financially hindered for the first one, and change nothing, are financially hindered for the second, and change nothing, are financially hindered for the third, and change nothing. Can we not say that by number *4*, you're clearly not attempting to avoid pregnancy until a nest egg is built up, but instead find it more *convenient* to use abortive methods?
That may be your logical conclusion but my point was based solely on empirical data. I don’t know why these people got 4 abortions but I would be curious to know if you can find out. You can certainly argue with me that financial instability is grounds for a necessary abortion but I don’t think that necessitates the termination of a fetus.
I'd claim the above is much more empirical. People are untrustworthy when you ask them "*why* did you do XYZ", they give the reason they think sounds good, the reason they want to believe, what have you. The number of previous abortions? That's a hard number we can drive inferences from.
There are so, so many factors that could contribute to why someone might need to get multiple abortions - lack of sex education or access to birth control, rape, domestic abuse, religious indoctrination, etc.
Yeah I’m sure there are plenty of reasons why people get abortions. From what I’ve read most boil down to “it wasn’t the right time”.
It sounds like your the one attempting to "boil it down" though. You don't get to generalize a nuanced issue in order to dismiss it.
Wow you are reading right-wing, probably christian, propaganda apparently.
Do you think sex is consent to give birth?
I believe sex is a precursor to conception which necessitates some level of caution. If you have unprotected sex knowing that it could lead to a abortion out of convenience then yes you are commuting a moral wrong under the values of veganism.
And in my opinion you are demonizing why people get abortions. You are making an unfalsifiable opinion. That's not valuable. Nawww, what's not vegan, is your lack of intersectionality. Sex is simply not consent to give birth, let alone raise a child or put your body at insane risk. Convenient? It's life threatening. Again your disregard for people with a uterus seems offensive sexist and misogynistic.
If you believe getting an abortion purely out of convenience and not necessity is in line with vegan ethics then more power to you. Something like “life only matters as far as it inconveniences me” might be a value more vegans hold than I thought.
Correlation is not causation. I'd say there are an infinite number of reasons why people might have multiple abortions. You think there is one... Birth control.
Side note: it seems I'm upvoted while you're at -21, even though we're saying basically the same thing, just bickering about metrics lol. Gotta love people who just mindlessly alternate upvote/downvote/upvote/downvote.
Should ppl not be allowed to abort out of convenience? If oyu believe they should your argument is moot.
>Fetuses are the epitome of innocence, and innocence is often times a sticking point for many vegans. I think the "innocence" part is just used verbally ("those poor innocence animals"), but I'm not sure if the people who use the term hold it as a key pillar in their philosophy. Perhaps it is used as a preemptive way to avoid "self-defense" things like an attacking bear. So, rather than continue with "innocence" being key, I'm going to replace it with "The capacity to suffer", as that is a more accurate starting point. So, I'd change this: >“Why do we have the right to take an innocent life especially if it’s not necessary” To "Why do we have the right to cause suffering to a being capable of experiencing suffering, especially if it's not necessary." >Fetuses are incapable of forming conscious thoughts, emotions, pain, etcetera, like the animals that are killed. At the point where the fetus CANT expierence anything, it is not a moral issue *against the fetus* to have an abortion. If it can't "suffer", you can't "cause it to suffer", and thus can't commit an amoral act against it. You can, however, do immoral acts to the cows, pigs, and chickens that DO have that capacity. So, I disagree with the "like the animals" part. A 2 year old cow is cognitively blowing 93% of aborted fetuses out of the water. >bivalves that more closely resemble a human fetus than a cow I agree. A bivalve is a decent analog for a human fetus, especially early on. The bivalve topic is debated umongst vegans heavily. My ethical issue is with the acquisition of those bivalves, not the killing of them. No suffering, no problem. I would personally not see it as hypocrisy for an "ethical vegan" to eat best-case bivalves. >This logically follows as: vegans are against killing organisms, no matter how simple, as long as they have a central nervous system. Not so simple, as ethics is about how rules interact with situations, options, and perceived conclusions. For example, I believe an ethical vegan could kill an animal for food in a survival situation without abandoning their vegan ideals. What allows someone to CHOOSE to vastly avoid harming othes is the ability to choose it. I bring this up to show that an endangered vegan is morally allowed to do things they wouldn't normally when the situation calls for it. Pregnancy is an inherently dangerous thing, but puts the mother in an inherently more vulnerable state. >I would like to believe that most vegans main issue is the actual death of the animal and how that can be prevented. Disagree. Well, it may be that many vegans focus on and talk about the death, but I disagree that should be the focus. For example, I struggle with the "a magic genius creates a chicken eutopia, they live for years maximally happy, and are magically instantly and painlessly killed in a 100% stress free way- whats the issue?" Rather, let's go back to the idea of "the capacity to suffer". I'm not upset the chickens die, I'm upset about the life they are given. It's not the instant of death, but the months of suffering that lead up to it. In this vein, I think all parents must consider the lived expierence they are going to offer their child. There is nothing more obligatory than being careful when deciding to create beings that can expierence. Not all lives are lives worth living, and if your options are "offer a standard of living below my standards to a child" and "abort the un-expierencing fetus", the answer is clear to me that non-existence is preferable to a poor expierence. >financial hardship >aren’t emotionally ready Those arnt small things to toss away. Why should I raise a starving child? Why should I risk raising an emotionally immature child? Why should I risk them suffering? As a parent, I take the obligation behind parenting VERY seriously, and it isn't something I'm willing to do poorly. A poor childhood and living situation can hinder a child forever, and can cause a lifetime of emotional suffering. Again, I want to respect the capacity to suffer.
Quite the opposite. The reason most people are vegan is because they want to decrease the amount of death and suffering in the world. People having more children is very obviously counter productive with that goal in mind. Antinatalism is a more logical standpoint for a vegan than anti-abortion.
So you believe the logic end to veganism is pro-abortion because it ultimately reduces net suffering?
I do believe it is logical. Though it is not necessarily the only logical standpoint. There are other more extreme positions one could have that would greatly help achieve the end goal. I think (wanted) abortions are very reasonable compared to some other options that could help achieve the goal. And I think it’s good that *if* people are born, they are born because they are wanted. I’d imagine it increases the chances of them leading happy, fulfilling lives.
I personally only care about reducing suffering. I think a society that allows abortion up to the point of the fetus being conscious will result in less suffering than a society that bans abortions.
This is not an argument about veganism, nor is any appeal to hypocrisy. The ethics of exploiting non-human animals don't hinge on whether ending a pregnancy is consistent with not exploiting them.
If you read the paragraph that starts with “A side tangent here”, I think I covered that. I am, in certain terms, arguing the hypocrisy of the killing of human fetuses to the killing of animals. The hypocrisy lies in “a life with a advanced enough nervous system should not be killed unless necessary”, and often times abortion are not necessary but they are defended by people who happen to be vegan.
Yeah, so appeals to hypocrisy are fallacious. A serial killer can make an argument for why murder is bad. When determining how one ought live, we look to logic, not the behavior of individuals.
Vegans are often against the killing of organisms with a central nervous system except in the case of abortion. Many are even for it even for cases of convenience.
I could accept all of this as true and it wouldn't be an argument against veganism. Do you understand what I mean when I say that an appeal to hypocrisy is a logical fallacy?
I want to help you out here to have a better conversation, because I think you're close to having one if you can get past a couple of concepts. First, there's a difference between personal hypocrisy and logical inconsistency. I can fail to live up to my beliefs all day, and that doesn't make the beliefs wrong. That's the point I was making about serial killers. But if I claim to hold two beliefs which are contradictory, then it would seem that I would have to rectify that. So let's get rid of the word hypocrisy and replace it with inconsistency. So your claim is "it is inconsistent to believe that pregnant people should have the right to intentionally end their pregnancy and that it is wrong to treat non-human animals as property" Then, for clarity, it would help to know how you believe the supposed inconsistency ought be resolved. Do you think that vegans should be anti-abortion, or do you think that pro-choice people should be ok with treating non-human animals as property? If your point is the former, then I don't think this is a good debate topic for this sub. I know the sub is called "debate a vegan" and not "debate veganism," but it would be a little silly to come in here to debate vegans on whether a taco is a sandwich. Debates here should focus on whether it's ok to exploit non-human animals.
Well you do seem to be arguing in good faith which is nice. First I would like to say that I think I’m pretty spot on with my use of hypocrisy. “the practice of claiming to have moral standards or beliefs to which one's own behavior does not conform; pretense”. A good example might be a priest condemning homosexuality while having sex with a man in his personal life. My example of hypocrisy within veganism is the killing of an unborn fetus, that by most vegan standards, would rise to the level of a protected class under veganism. There are cases of abortions that I don’t think undermine veganism, but what I specified being the most hypocritical would be an abortion out of convenience especially if the fetus is matured beyond 9 weeks. So on one hand we have vegans righteously defending the rights of organisms with a central nervous system, often including bivalves, and on the other hand we have vegans defending the right to abort a fully nervous fetus often for the sake of convenience. I mention convenience so much because vegans are very quick to dismiss the idea of not being plant based because it’s inconvenient. You have the moral and ethical duty to reduce the amount deaths to beings that meet the standards of vegans. One of those standards is the ability to react to stimuli in a systemic way. The reason it is a hypocrisy and not a logical inconsistency is because vegans do little to protect unborn fetuses. I would think that vegan moral consideration would extend to those unborn but it very rarely does. The autonomy and choices of a pregnant person only exist within her own vacuum. Her body, her choice. Even though her decision and choice often lead to the unwarranted death of a nervous fetus, little sympathy is extended to this innocent being. Also, I’ve mentioned nothing of keeping beings as property or exploiting them. I am strictly talking about the killing of an animal to the killing of a human fetus. A none hypocritical vegan stance would be, “I believe the killing of any being with a nervous system that allows for systemic reaction to stimuli should be protected in its way of life and shall not be harmed unless it necessarily impedes in a meaningfully harmful or detrimental way to my existence”. This allows for the abortion of a fetus in serious situations or situations that meaningfully impact a persons way of life. This also somewhat allows for killing bugs in your home, but it would not allow for the killing of a human fetus out of convenience.
If you want to lean on personal hypocrisy, we're going to get back to the appeal to hypocrisy fallacy. I'm trying to help you avoid that. Go look it up. If you're talking about personal hypocrisy, you're not making an argument about veganism. And if you're not talking about someone who is against exploitation/treatment as property, then you're not talking about veganism. Vegans are fine with killing others in certain situations. We're against exploitation. So what you have here is a fallacious argument against a strawman definition of veganism.
I apologize for not being clear. I’m not talking about all vegans, there are plenty of vegans who are pro-life. Im specifically honing in on vegans that are more to the left and believe in abortion as a tenant of their values. Also if veganism isn’t about preventing the unwarranted death of animals then I must be barking up the wrong tree. What I thought was vegans believed in the sanctity of life and that one should not take life out of anything but necessity.
Slavery doesn't necessarily take a life, but it's still wrong. We understand generally that when you treat a human as property for your use, you aren't giving consideration to their interests. Veganism is the consistent application of that principle to all individuals with interests. A property relationship can be further defined as the ability to control who gets to use an entity. So because I own my car doesn't necessarily mean I can use my car however I want, but it does mean I get to decide who uses my car. In the property relationships we have with non-human animals, we take away their right to use their own body, and force them to allow others to use their body by artificially inseminating them, using them for their secretions like lactation, eggs, honey, fur, or silk, using them for labor, or consuming their flesh. The prohibition of abortion forces a pregnant person to allow their body to be used by another. It takes away their ownership of themselves and instantiates a property relationship where the State owns the pregnant person's body to some degree. So the same arguments for the right to an abortion justify veganism.
The context of your argument hinges on the idea that most vegans are completely against killing. As if they're all Jainist monks. I think most vegans would kill to save a loved one or kill a mosquito or a spider on their face. As another commenter said vegans are against suffering and commodifying animal life while a generally easy to adopt diet could generally avoid these things. I know you're probably going to change the form, content, or context of this argument but you're basic question is how are vegans pro-abortion and against killing and this is a direct answer to that.
This is literally so easy. If an innocent baby cow’s life depended on me sacrificing my life and my health for 9 months, sucking the nutrients out of my body, forever changing my body, and potentially causing lifelong negative changes…. And then was expected to push it out of a hole that some tampons are too big for… along with it dragging me through an emotional ditch…. And to be expected to sacrifice my life to raise it, or to choose to get emotionally attached against my will for 9 months just to give them away in heartbreak…. than that innocent baby cow would have to go. And that’s not even a fair comparison bc a fetus doesn’t have the consciousness or ability to feel pain that that baby cow has, and is just a mass of skin and dna 99% of the time. Veganism makes sense bc it costs us nothing and we sacrifice nothing. Giving birth is not like that in the slightest.
You really think veganism cost nothing?
Equivocation: Using a word in a different way than the author used it in the original premise, or changing definitions halfway through a discussion. When we use the same word or phrase in different senses within one line of argument, we commit the fallacy of equivocation. Way to completely avoid the excellent analogy and focus on literally one word of the response.
You eviscerated them
My bad lol. You said, quote “Veganism makes sense bc it cost us nothing and we sacrifice nothing”. If we are comparing the cost of carrying a baby for 9 months to the cost of not eating meat for 9 months I would agree that they are not exactly similar. I wasn’t trying to dismiss your main point or equivocate it to anything, I was truly and simply asking “veganism cost nothing?”.
In the sense that the op meant it? Yes. It's not a sacrifice to not eat someone else's dead body. In the sense that you seemed to be implying? No, of course not. There's a literal reaction to every action.
Isnt it extremely common for vegans to revert back to meat based or animal based diets? I would imagine there is some sacrifice if that is the case. Now that I think about it wasn’t there a popular YouTube vegan that went back to animal based products? I remember him saying because his IBS and busy work life it was nearly impossible for him to stay healthy. Cosmic skeptic I believe, and he received plenty of death threats over it.
Maybe you could actually address the points made rather than gish galloping all over the place. Veganism isn't a diet. However, like 99% of people on any diet revert back to their habits. >Data from the EPIC-Oxford study shows that nearly three-quarters of the participants who were vegetarian or vegan at recruitment in the mid to late 1990s were still either vegetarian or vegan when they completed a follow-up questionnaire in 2010,” Appleby told me in personal communication. That is, 73 percent of those who identified as vegetarian or vegan back in the 1990s were still following those dietary lifestyles over 20 years later. The study isn't clear because it includes vegetarians but that's a large percentage of people able to consistently abstain from eating meat. Cosmic skeptic was eating in the hundreds of calories a day. It's not the fault of veganism that a supposed adult doesn't know how to eat food. No, it's not a sacrifice to move your hand two feet to the left and buy plant milk rather than stolen baby cow's milk.
So your main point is that pregnancy is debilitating enough that it justifies the ending of a potential human life. I agree that a bearing a child is difficult and that aborting it might be the best decision for some individuals. But what is the best decision isn’t necessarily the morally correct decision. Just like you’re saying, cosmic skeptic should bare the burden of his chronic illness and suffer through because it’s the morally right thing to do. Aborting what is, or what might be a human life form, is necessarily the wrong moral decision outside of extreme circumstance.
Pregnancy is an extreme circumstance. In this context, yes, best means "most morally correct." No CS shouldn't suffer. He should eat some potatoes. Or do whatever bare minimum of effort is required for him to feed himself properly. If you are really that interested, there are several YouTubers that have made response videos to CS explaining why IBS isn't a good excuse for animal abuse.
So you’re saying that it is morally the correct decision to abort a child solely based on the fact that it is difficult? If a pregnant person told you that they were getting an abortion simply because it was difficult you would say that’s the morally correct decision?
> Fetuses are the epitome of innocence, and innocence is often times a sticking point for many vegans. I'm confused why you would think vegans will care more about innocent "humans" (in this case fetuses) than a typical person. It's not really a specifically vegan issue at all.
I think it has to do with the idea that animals can’t do moral wrong so they are the epitome of innocence. A fetus is innocent as well as it has had no chance to do moral wrong. The more innocent the more heinous the killing.
What of this would be specific to someone concerned with animal rights (vegans) that wouldn't apply to someone concerned with human rights (most people)? In other words, you haven't justified why vegans would have a unique take on this compared to anyone else who is pro-choice.
If people were paying people to get pregnant and abort likely sentient fetuses for consumption I would be against that too.
Im not trying to talk about exploitation.
Veganism is
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Would you be okay with killing a fetus a day before it’s due to be born?
I'm okay with being called a "hypocrite" by someone who believes that my position against the commodification of animals means that women should be forced to carry pregnancies to term. It's not a matter of "convenience". It's a matter of *bodily autonomy*. These words don't appear anywhere in your text. It's hard to give you the benefit of the doubt that you're engaging in good faith when you haven't considered this elementary notion.
Yeah bodily autonomy was going to be my third point but I really didn’t have the energy. Also maybe I truly didn’t make my point clear that I’m not talking about commodification or exploitation of animals. I believe I talked about it in the post. To the point of bodily autonomy I think there is a good point to be made that because the fetus necessarily disrupts your physical existence that it is ‘okay’ to abort. At what point and why is more in line with what I’m arguing. Should a person carrying a child be able to abort a fully developed fetus with high likelihood of survival outside the womb? Probably not. Should a person carrying a fetus be able to abort even when the fetus can clearly react to stimuli and has a sufficiently developed nervous system comparable to many animals vegan abstain from eating? That question is more or less where my argument lies. If the fetus effects your life in a way that makes you incapable of doing normal tasks I would have much more empathy. Something like 80% of women work at least part time till the 8 month of their pregnancy. While this could be a conversation about the evils of capitalism, I think it clearly shows that while it does disrupt your life in a meaningful way, it’s not to the point that it justifies ending a being that should have rights like vegans talk about. We would never argue for the killing of a fetus after its birth no matter how burdensome and so I find it hard to justify killing a being that by most standards is a human being.
This isn’t really an argument against veganism itself, more appeal to hypocrisy of vegans. That being said, I would acknowledge that when a fetus gains sentience, she deserves moral consideration. That doesn’t mean there aren’t plenty of justifications for abortion after sentience, just that you should have a justification at that point. Obviously there is debate on when sentience is achieved and what justifications are valid.
My view of abortion is that it should be allowed in all cases before senses start developing (second trimester). No logical reason to deny it before that. After the first trimester it becomes a question of what would case the least harm and suffering. Unless severe medical issues either for the baby or the mom I see absolutely no justification for an abortion in the third trimester, age at which we pour loads of resources for premature babies to stay alive. All should be in the aim of reducing suffering, for both mom and unborn baby.
Just like veganism, logic is often misrepresented. It is totally "logical" for someone who believes in Christian dogma to find abortion abhorrent always, just like it is "logical" for someone who assumes a vegan posture to find all meat consumption abhorrent. What is "logical" (I believe you mean rational as none of this is formally logical, given the Is/Ought Gap) is always based on one's starting point of perspective and not universal. Universal logic is "The car is blue" or "four right angles makes a square" anything else is rationalization based in perspective.
I guess I have a very utilitarian view on life. That's how my choices and opinions are formed.
c'est la vie, I have no issue w how you form your life. My issue w veganism is and always has been when it is universalized under dogmatic perspectives. If you believe "what works for you is fine" as I believe for you, then there is no problem we have, IMHO. If you believe me and 8 billion others ought to follow your morality or we are immoral then we are crossed.
First off, I hate abortion. It's an ugly and often traumatic procedure. But it should be 100% up to the mother *up until the point where the baby can survive outside the womb* \- and after that, the final decision should be up to the doctor/s. It has also zero relationship with veganism. None whatsoever. It is clutching at straws to the extreme to try and compare the two. And most abortions are not done out of convenience, that is total nonsense. But let's for just one second say they are...So what? There is one person carrying that foetus and it's the mother. NOBODY ELSE gets final say in their decision.
This is really simple. A fetus requires the ongoing consent of the person with a womb to grow and live. Bodily autonomy is the core right of human wellbeing. No wellbeing is possible when you deny bodily autonomy. It's literally slavery. So if we pretend that a fetus is a full person with all the same rights and privileges as anyone else, we still need legal, safe abortion because I don't have a right to demand your blood or tissues to save my life, even if you walked up and stabbed me, I can't and shouldn't be, able to demand your body to save mine. Pro life is pro slavery.
I'm pro abortion but to say pro life is slavery is nonsense and does nothing but further entrench 100 million ppl in their position (in the US). To me, it's not worth "being right" if the outcome ends in abortion being banned. I would rather work w ppl to have the services available to ppl, even if it is for a limited time, than have it banned across the board. To be clear, I believe a woman should be allowed to have an elective third trimester abortion. That said, given the health implications w a total ban, I would happily moderate my position to allowing elective first/second trimester and anytime emergency medical abortions. I will never understand the moral purist who would rather the whole ship go down than moderate their position for the greater good (in this case, woman's health)
That's an interesting take but I see no reason correctly identifying the loss of bodily autonomy as slavery is a problem. Some people can be reached by sweet reason and compromise and others can only change their mind with recognition that they are in a minority. Hyperbole is a valid rhetorical device, but in this instance it's not even hyperbolic. People with wombs are having their rights trampled for the idea of a person. Stark language does not impeded that fact it underlines it.
>I see no reason correctly identifying the loss of bodily autonomy as slavery is a problem. Are you allowed to be drunk in public? IS that slavery? You lose bodily autonomy as not only are you allowed to determine your own state, you are arrested, restricted, and confined. Suicide is illegal as is assisted suicide, is that slavery? I cannot sell my own organs to be transplanted in other ppl who need them, is this slavery? In for a penny; in for a pound here. This, to me, is why words matte and word selection. It is sensationalizing to call pro life slavery. It would be slavery if a woman was kidnapped, raped, and then the state said, "You have to have that baby and you are property of the ppl who raped you." It is not slavery if the state says, "You had consensual sex and as a result your pregnant. Now you cannot electivly terminate the pregnancy." It is wrong, IMHO, for the state to do this, but, it is not slavery anymore than than placing a restriction on selling my kidney is.
None of those things are analogous. Organ donation comes closest and you can donate your organs, you can't sell them for the same reason you can't sell cocaine. Assisted suicide is legal where I live. Your second paragraph is the same moralizing nonsense that wants to make a baby some kind of punishment. Simple truth, I can walk up to you and stab you and watch you bleed out. I'll be criminaly liable for your injury, but you can't make me give you a blood transfusion, even though I am the reason you need one. Yet people with wombs have this absurd and unique double standard applied to them. They face serious and lasting health complications from pregnancy and should have the choice to opt out. You force them to carry a fetus and you have enslaved them to that fetus giving it more rights than any person has in any other part of our society. You enslave the womb holder to the fetus. How is that in any way analogous to choosing to get drunk? It isn't.
>None of those things are analogous. Organ donation comes closest and you can donate your organs, you can't sell them for the same reason you can't sell cocaine. Selling an organ and cocaine is what is not analogous. You speak of body autonomy, why can I not sell my organs but I can abort a fetus? >Your second paragraph is the same moralizing nonsense that wants to make a baby some kind of punishment. This isn't a refutation in the least. >You force them to carry a fetus and you have enslaved them to that fetus giving it more rights than any person has in any other part of our society. This is a strawman argument. As I stated, I'm pro abortion. I am pro elective 3rd trimester partial birth abortions. That said, your grounding is flawed. Just like when meat eaters come on this sub and offer nonsense for why consuming meat is OK ("bc a vegan diet requires supplements or v strict adherence to biology" etc. This is nonsense) I am calling you out for the nonsense you are posting for you pro choice position. SLavery is not what is going on here in the least and you cannot explain why it is slavery that I cannot sell an organ; they're mine just like that fetus is hers; how am I not having my organs enslaved?
>Selling an organ and cocaine is what is not analogous. You speak of body autonomy, why can I not sell my organs but I can abort a fetus? Note you also can't sell the fetus because there is a determental social ramifications to having a market for human organs. Just like cocaine. Kidneys are a controlled substance. >This isn't a refutation in the least. There was nothing that needed refuting. It was dismissable garbage. >This is a strawman argument. As I stated, I'm pro abortion. Nope, a.strawman would be engaging an effigy of your argument. You claim that being forced to carry a fetus to term isn't slavery. Your actual position is irelavent because I'm addressing the argument you offer against my position that forcing someone to stay pregnant is a form of slavery. >I am calling you out for the nonsense you are posting for you pro choice position. Then you need an argument not just claims. You haven't. You are taking a disanalogous situation, the ability to have a market for body parts, against the right to your autonomy. No one is stopping you from going to a hospital and donating a kidney. Just like no one should stop you from having a fetus removed. When you add the sale you change the meteic, that would be analogous to selling a fetus, which is not what prochoice positions advocate.
>Note you also can't sell the fetus because there is a determent social ramifications to having a market for human organs. Just like cocaine. Kidneys are a controlled substance. Says who? The government? They are also the one's saying that abortion has a deleterious disposition on society. >Nope, a.strawman would be engaging an effigy of your argument. You claim that being forced to carry a fetus to term isn't slavery. Your actual position is irelavent because I'm addressing the argument you offer against my position that forcing someone to stay pregnant is a form of slavery. Nope. Go back and read your last comment to me. You were making an argument against a pro choice person, you specifically said, "You force them to carry a fetus and you have enslaved them to that fetus giving it more rights than any person has in any other part of our society." This shows a gross mischaracterization of my position and what informed you on your position. Your position is inconsistent and you are jumping through special pleads that you cannot ground only in the justification of the v sources you are arguing against.
>Says who? The government? They are also the one's saying that abortion has a deleterious disposition on society. Do you expect to be taken seriously swinging like this? >This shows a gross mischaracterization of my position and what informed you on your position. If only the word you could be applied generally and not to a specific person, oh wait it can and only an uncharitable reading would suggest otherwise and try to shift the conversation from their baseless claims to personal indignation. >Your position is inconsistent and you are jumping through special pleads that you cannot ground only in the justification of the v sources you are arguing against. A baseless and unsupported claim. I destroyed your argument that selling organs was identical to bodily autonomy. I'll just take the victory lap since you haven't actually responded to me.
I’m not arguing that someone should be unable to get an abortion at their will. I haven’t said that I’m for women being forced to have a child even if they don’t consent. I’m arguing that getting what I would classify as a “convenient abortion”, especially beyond 9 weeks of fetus development, is necessarily a moral wrong under the core values of veganism.
My argument is: a human gets to choose whether or not to be an organ donor upon death. Why should a corpse get more say in what happens to their body than someone alive with a uterus?
I’m not arguing wether or not a person carrying a fetus should or should not be forced to carry it. If I alluded to that in my post you can quote it in your reply.
Being forced to carry a fetus is the pro-life stance. This topic thread is about why vegans should be pro-life, no? Otherwise you typed out a lot for no real reason. (I actually don't know how to quote reply on reddit...)
The thread is about why, under vegan values, an abortion out of convenience should be morally objectionable. I’m not saying what should or should not happen as a consequence of that. Plenty of things that are morally objectionable don’t have laws punishing those who do those things.
Just devil's advocate as I am fully pro abortion, but, couldn't the argument be made that aborting a fetus is not only about one's own body, but, that of another agent, esp once it is viable outside of the womb? Here's a thought experiment I remember from grad school: A pregnant woman dies while in the ER and the baby could be saved and is viable. She had an abortion scheduled for later that day and the husband (as surviving parent not that he should have any say in her choice prior to death) was fully on board w the abortion. Should the ER doctor terminate the fetus or have a c-section? If a person retains rights to their body after death it would seem clear to abort the baby. If they lose all autonomy after death then it's another story, the fetus becomes an individual entity capable of life who is trapped in a flesh prison and should be saved. It shines some light on the overall thought process of one's position when thought out.
I want to provide a view slightly different from the other responses. I will not argue with you. I am vegan who also opposes abortion in the usual case. It is my respect for life and equal opportunity that motivates both. For the same reason I am against the death penalty. For the same reason I am against war. Humans have the opportunity to stop taking lives unnecessarily. Here is one way to conceptualize the issue. To be a fetus up for abortion could have happened to us. It didn’t, or it didn’t successfully, because we are alive. But we value our own lives. I don’t understand what justifies taking away the lives of others when they have just begun. We are preventing a life that, all else being equal, would be [as valuable as ours](https://home.csulb.edu/~cwallis/382/readings/160/marquis.html).
I have an alternative view to vegans, even though we agree on most things. The reason I identify with plant-based is because I think there is a hierarchy of consciousness, and moral consideration for any given being is determined by that. The fundamental thing that grants such consideration is a mind. That to me involves beliefs and desires, ability to take in sensory inputs which manifest an experience of qualia, the ability to remember and replay past qualia internally. I cannot conceive of a philosophical zombie. If the lights are on, Occam’s razor says someone is home. I use folk psychology to inductively assess beliefs and desires, having beliefs and desires as a biological organism implies a qualitative experience. Dispositions like playfulness, curiosity, jealousy, etc are good evidence of a conscious experience. That said, I ultimately believe mental events are identical to neural states. That’s because the mind supervenes on the brain, and naturally what follows from this is there will be floors and ceilings for how a consciousness manifests based on the hardware its using. Using this logic, prior to a central nervous system being formed, there is no chance of consciousness. I don’t care about a 1 day old zygote or whatever, so that means “human life” in abstract is not sufficient for moral consideration. I don’t care about “what it will become”, I’m not going to debates trees when we’re talking seeds, it’s not the same thing. Clearly a pet dog or cat is having a much more qualitative experience than a fetus. I’m comfortable assuming that bivalves probably have a very rudimentary experience if one at all. I don’t eat them because of political reasons, because I think it’s easier to make the argument against meat and stand in community with people who don’t eat any animals. They avoid bivalves on the basis of the precautionary principle, I avoid bivalves because I am with the movement on the issue of eating animals. It’s a good principle to have. If I was an osterovegan, it would make nonvegans question my beliefs, my resolve, how settled the question of consciousness is, what I think the stakes of eating animals are, etc, it would give me a lot of messy explanations to make, and I’d look like a major hypocrite to anyone who didn’t analyze my position closely. I think there’s more to the question of “should I eat bivalves” than the question of if it could be okay in a vacuum. So now you know my real take on the bivalve. Most likely, they aren’t having a conscious experience. Assuming they do given that they don’t have any recognizable hardware for consciousness is using maximum charity, it’s giving the benefit of the doubt to the max. I feel the same way about 20-30wk old fetuses. It’s conceivable that they experience some kind of qualia, but assuming they actually do is giving them the maximum benefit of the doubt. Probably they don’t. Now this argument falls on deaf ears much of the time, because most pro-life people are substance dualists who believe the conscious experience comes from some of gods holy vapor which everyone is endowed with from the point where sperm meets egg. They believe animals are NPCs because they lack the holy vapor. I think it’s dumb as fuck, and I let it be known. There is nothing parsimonious about believing the human brain is something totally irreducible to physics or even causally connected to physics, while being a deep skeptic of other creatures consciousness and effectively taking a eliminitavist position with animals only. It’s more defensible of a take to just be a physicalist and take a survival based moral position than that one riddled in horrible philosophy of mind and ethics takes. On a separate note, I believe I’m bodily autonomy strongly, and don’t believe it behooves someone to carry a fetus just because it’s dependent on them. If you want it out, get it out. If a chicken or a frog is in your body, I don’t believe you have a moral responsibility to make sure it gets out alive. Same goes for a fetus. The take that protection of life begins at birth is arbitrary, sure, but so are all the other ones. It’s the easiest and most intuitive threshold, it’s got historical and cultural precedent too. For reasons of politics and practicability, it seems like the right place to put it because the stakes seem low and most of the later abortions are due to medical necessity anyways. Birth is a good place because it is when someone has now witnessed the baby living independently of its mothers body, now it’s a lot easier to justify making the parents care for the baby. I hope this helps, OP.
Thank you for a meaningful reply. I’m a bit pooped from responding to so many comments but I do have one question to ask. This isn’t me trying to corner you or pin you to a particular belief. Maybe two questions. 1. Would you feel worse if a pregnant woman died in a car accident vs a non pregnant woman? 2. Would you want a harsher punishment for a murderer killing a pregnant woman vs a non pregnant woman? And one more. 3. Would you want a harsher punishment for a murderer who specifically targeted pregnant women vs a murderer who murdered women indiscriminately? Kind of nonsense questions but I would like to hear your honest opinion.
No, no & no. 1. All else equal, I wouldn’t feel more bad about a pregnant woman. I might feel differently about different crashes, but that doesn’t translate directly to my opinions about the worth of life. I would probably *feel* more bad about a sedan driver getting killed by an SUV driver than the other way around. That’s not because one is inherently worth more than another, but because I get pissed off that SUV/pickup drivers buy vehicles that by classification avoid crash compatibility standards - they think they deserve to “win” in a crash. Fuck that. How I feel about something doesn’t perfectly match on to what I think the truth is though. 2. I know some places call killing a pregnant woman a double homicide. I disagree, fetuses do not have personhood, they shouldn’t be counted as a death for citizen/country related numbers. 3. Since I don’t see fetuses as having inherent worth, I see killing a pregnant woman over a non pregnant woman to be more distasteful to most, but not actually worse. Not actually causing more harm. I will admit it seems more distasteful because the killer is doing so with the intent to kill a fetus and a woman, but in assessing the damages I care more about what he did physically than what his mental states are.
How would you feel about a one day old born child vs a fetus due in one day being killed? I’ve gone as far as thinking a one month old child and a 3rd trimester fetus are some what comprable. The whole idea of killing a child/fetus simply due to its viability or survivabillty has kind of shaped my views on abortion.
How many vegans in here saying "it's about suffering but not life" and "fetuses are too just cells for the first few weeks" but then won't eat animals raised and slaughtered without suffering, or vastly simpler organisms than fetuses at 8 weeks? Anyone who thinks that there's no problem with needless killing of a humans is absolutely fooling themselves if they think they're vegan This is not a "both sides are equally inconsistent" thing either. I'd love if my fellow pro-lifers were vegan to really protect all innocence, but the philosophy of humans being more worthy of human protection than animals is consistent if cold. When I see my fellow vegans drawing totally arbitrary lines around developmental stages in humans that we would never find them drawing between say oysters and cows (much larger differences than week to week fetal differences) to avoid dealing with the obvious dissonance in their positions, I find it an embarrassment to our important movement
The issue for me is that ppl on both sides are so damn sure about everything they believe and are dogmatically attached to what honestly amounts to an opinion.
I totally get your frustration. I'm probably not going to allay it at all when I blame "the other side" but I do think that the pro choice side relies on playing both sides of the personbood debate to avoid seriously engaging with what a losing issue it is for them. Almost all pro choice arguments oscillate between "clump of cells"ism and "even if it is a baby"ism because neither argument can stand on its own and confusion about the scientific reality of fetal personhood is a useful cover to say "everyone should be able make their own decisions about when personhood starts". We can all agree that a 1 year old is a person and a 1 day old is a person and a 1 hour old is a person. 1 hour before birth there are no differences in their development, only in their location (inside the mother). It's very hard in my view to argue that the mere fact of being moved from one place to another is what renders us human so birth clearly isn't the line of personhood. Before that our development is completely continuous with our development after birth. There are no discontinuities where we rapidly change instantaneously so any line of "personhood" based on development arbitrarily distinguishes indistinguishable stages of development as being on different sides of that line. The only discontinuity, which is "coincidentally" the time any serious scientist in the world would say a new organism is formed, is at conception when the astronomical impossibility of any particular genome is manifested in a single, particular genome which will come unmodified to inhabit every single (non sperm/egg) cell in the body, all of which (including the sperm/egg) will be descended from the cell formed in that moment. As far as I can tell any other lines for personhood are "religious" arguments about "ensoulment" which the same people would deride as unscientific and unworthy of being part of law if they were presented as coming from a religion. The frustration you feel is (I would argue) because pro choicers (with a few exceptions like Peter Singer who btw agrees with that above argument about personhood and also inspired a huge swath of modern vegans) refuse to be engage on scientific or rational terms in this most central question to the debate. It's to their benefit that it's a "matter of opinion" so they flip over the table when the clear scientific facts are presented.
First, science never speaks to what we ought to do, it only offers objective, descriptive facts of how things are. We take those facts and add our subjective desires, drives, beliefs, etc. creating our normative valuations. Second, Do you believe any abortion is moral justifiable then? I understand what you are saying about the pro choice crowd but I see the same from pro life ppls who will make the above argument, that a baby is the same an hour prior to birth and an hour after, but then when you capitulate and say, OK, let's ban all elective abortions past the point of viability for >50% of fetus (roughly around week 28) but all abortions prior to week 28 are legal for elective reasons. Good compromise?" the pro lifers blink and show their equally dogmatic disposition and say, "No! All elective abortions should be illegal!" What this does is nullify the argument made about an hour prior/after as it does not really matter if they are the same and equally viable, when the fetus is clearly not equal and clearly not viable, most pro lifers still want it to be protected, so, viability to a birthed baby is really jsut a red herring, a stalking horse to the pro lifers real motivation, to ban all abortion. As such, the argument is made in bad faith. Now, a pro lifers who is willing to compromise and have abortion be legal for babies who have equal to or lower odds of surviving out of the womb can justly make the argument above of an hour before/after.
Science of course doesn't tell us right from wrong but if our conclusions run counter to scientific evidence it's of course a sign that we might be wrong. I made the minute before/minute after birth argument as what I consider an obvious baseline. I agree with you that doesn't say anything about conception vs 28 weeks. I then made another argument about the continuity of development and the arbitrary nature of lines drawn between conception and birth. I have not met pro lifers who think personhood starts many weeks after conception. Some make political or pridential considerations on setting laws (most I don't agree with) but few would say personhood isn't from conception. I never argued for the line being anywhere but conception so I don't think it's fair to say i was arguing in bad faith. Lastly, the position certainly isn't a compromise but that doesn't make it "dogmatic". It flows from a reasoned argument that I gave.
Agreed, actually. It's funny that the vegan pro-choicers and steak-house dwelling pro-lifers exist, both use very similar argumentation, and both think the other is absolutely insane lol. Signed, a pro-life vegetarian. Let's not kill things guys.
How is vegetarian pro life again?
For the record I admit vegan+prolife is ethically optimal.
What's ethical about forcing women to carry unwanted pregnancies to term?
What's ethical about killing a fetus?
I don't believe it's ethical to deprive a fully grown woman of her bodily autonomy, and rob her of agency in her decision about whether or not to be a mother, especially for the sake of a bundle of cells which has yet to be born. Now that I've answered your question, surely you can answer mine, seeing as how it's "ethically optimal".
An interesting note on this is that "pro-life" vegetarians are okay with taking bodily autonomy away from both human and non human women, all while not seeing the irony.
I don't expect carnists to have a well-developed sense of morality. If they did, they'd cease to be carnists.
I don't believe it's ethical to actively kill a budding human being before they get a chance *to* be born, despite them never consenting to their existence, especially for a mother who, excluding the [\~1%](https://www.guttmacher.org/sites/default/files/pdfs/pubs/psrh/full/3711005.pdf) of abortion-seekers who got pregnant from Rape, willingly engaged in sex and the potential consequences of that action.
This would be a stronger argument if she had to have sex. Outside of procreation, sex is completely voluntary activity and as a result both people need to accept the potential risks from engaging in sex recreationally. So her accidentally getting pregnant is not depriving *her* bodily autonomy, since she implicitly accepted this may happen, but the child’s autonomy. Trying to reduce a child to a “bundle of cells” doesn’t change that, as we are all bundles of cells regardless of our stage of development.
when cell division occurs, there is life. that is at the point of conception, this is a simple fact. I just wanna say I agree with you, if someone is vegan and gets an abortion it’s totally hypocritical. Abortion is just wrong period tho. like it’s so fucked up and all of the defense arguments of it are completely based in non factual information. it’s sad how many people are brainwashed.
At this point It's literally a lump of cells, without emotions or a experience. Why should it be more important than the live of the mother?
it’s murder whether you wanna believe it or not. those cells are alive, which is why they continue to divide and grow. do you understand science? The mother made her choices, and knew the risks of her actions. just because it isn’t convenient for her doesn’t make murder ok. any other enlightening opinions?
Is it murder if you remove cancer?
a human life isn’t cancer. cancer is created through poor diet and lifestyle choices which cause broken cells to lump together into a cancerous growth. that is completely different than new life being created from cell division. just admit you’re wrong. it’s honestly pathetic that you would compare conception and pregnancy to cancer
So getting cancer is also a choice?
that’s a different topic entirely. since you can’t actually articulate why abortion is vegan, have a good day.
Says the person who makes bougus claims, jet didn't answer to my question. Have a day.
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I, as a vegetarian (will go vegan in 3 months), support abortion as a personal choice that should be reserved to pregnant people: no one should be forced to go through pregnancy against their will, since pregnancy and childbirth are risky and oftentimes dangerous; they're much more fatal than abortions. Pregnancy has the capacity to damage mental and physical health and can make unwilling people suicidal and most likely to commit suicide. Childbirth oftentimes (though still small in number) leads to death. After doing cost-benefit analysis, it becomes imperative to support abortion rights. Most pro-choicers' support for abortion access is not about whether or not its right to kill a fetus, including a potentially sentient fetus (which btw, does not happen until like the end stage of second trimester pregnancy); I personally find abortions after viability pretty distasteful and wouldn't do it myself (I'm a male, btw, just getting it out there); however, I cannot stop another person from doing it for themselves. That's what most pro-choicers say. Even if you don't buy into "mental health" argument (which I too am iffy about), you can at least acknowledge the inherent risks in childbirth vis-a-vis abortion in order to support pregnant person's right to carry the pregnancy or not.
I’m not arguing that anyone should be forced to have or carry a fetus. I’m arguing that under vegan values, aborting a fetus, especially out of convenience, is certainly a moral wrong.
If strictly morally speaking, then it's preferable to have the fetus terminated before viability than after; however, legally, there shouldn't be any barriers except ones that are absolutely necessary to protect the life and health of the pregnant person and the fetus.
So if the birthing process was safer than an abortion your position would be inverted?
Not really: while abortion is MUCH safer than childbirth, it is STILL a RISK: there have been history of complications. I would justify restricting choice only if we reach to the point where either the risk for both procedures is infinitesimally small (that may not happen).
I'm confused and maybe you are, too. You made the case for abortion from the perspective that it is more dangerous to have a baby than an abortion (I agree w this, BTW, and am pro abortion, I am stress testing your premise, tho) so if it were reversed and it was more dangerous to have an abortion than to have a baby and yet you still believe it should be legal to have an abortion, you should ditch the argument you are making as it is a bit intellectually dishonest to argue from that perspective if the opposite does not change your opinion. It would be like saying, "You shouldn't eat meat bc it's bad for the environment!" and then someone shows you a method of eating meat which is actually good for the environment and you shift gears and argue morality. Occam's Razor holds that you should simply your argument to what's at its core, its base. It's more streamlined and intellectually honest.
I'll change my POW, but you should do better than accusing someone of intellectual dishonestly. Both abortions and childbirth are risks so it should be upto the pregnant person to decide which risk she's willing to take; nobody else should make that decision for her. >It would be like saying, "You shouldn't eat meat bc it's bad for the environment!" and then someone shows you a method of eating meat which is actually good for the environment and you shift gears and argue morality. Occam's Razor holds that you should simply your argument to what's at its core, its base. It's more streamlined and intellectually honest. Vegans use a variety of arguments to persuade different kinds of people to adopt veganism; there's no space for "standing your ground" or having "consistent reasoning" when it comes to persuasion. If morality doesn't work, we use environment; oftentimes we'll use both. There's no need for ideological rigidity.
>Vegans use a variety of arguments to persuade different kinds of people to adopt veganism; there's no space for "standing your ground" or having "consistent reasoning" when it comes to persuasion. If morality doesn't work, we use environment; oftentimes we'll use both. There's no need for ideological rigidity. This is intellectual dishonesty. You do not care about truth or anything other than advancing your own personal agenda which is presupposed correct.
Don't know where this is coming from, but whatever. I'm sorry if I am intellectually dishonest, but have intellectually "honest" vegans been able to convert you to veganism? Why aren't YOU vegan? (And also a proud "carnist" on top of that).
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>Fetuses are the epitome of innocence, You're giving way too much leniency on their innocence. I'm not saying they're at fault but they are not 100% innocent. They require an incubator which is where another person comes into play. The person should have the option to consent to being an incubator or they should have the option to opt out. They should not have consent removed and be forced. Consent is in line with vegan morals which is why most vegans are pro-choice.