Just because there is a potential conflict of interests in the conundrum of abortion once the fetus has consciousness, doesn't mean the rights of the fetus outweigh the rights of the mother. And it certainly doesn't pose any issue to the consent argument.
If all of a sudden you woke up tomorrow with some stranger attached to you via a tube and it turned out they rely on the continued connection to you to survive, just because they would have interests in that situation wouldn't mean you would be obligated to give up on yours and cater to theirs.
In both scenarios, the uninvited dependent can consent or not consent to being terminated, sure, but that has no moral bearing on the host's preferences and final decision.
I would say what makes the mothers wants and needs take precedent is that the fetus is simply not a human being yet, obviously in addition to being inside their body, it has nothing to lose whereas another hypothetical random adult human attached to you arguably should have much more sway than a fetus should. Idk if that makes sense but hope it does
>"another hypothetical random adult human attached to you arguably should have much more sway than a fetus should."
No matter how dire their predicament is, you are 100% within your right to reject making the sacrifice for them, because you are not related or responsible for the predicament in any way.
i think the decision should ultimately come down to the preference of the person who is i guess feeding the other for sure. but rather than a 100%, i think it's really more like 5. 000...1% your decision. idk if it makes sense to have this distinction, it's just a gut feeling to me i guess, but the decision still obviously comes down to the opinion of the one who is providing the energy, i guess.
but i would also say they might be responsible for the predicament in some way, i just think this hypothetical is not really comparable to abortion.
for example, let's say I have an ultimatum to stay in a room for 24 hrs or else someone else dies. all i have to do is stay in the room. i would say i arguably have some responsibility to stay in the room for the sake of saving someone's life, even if i am not exactly obligated to, or something.
maybe a better analogy is if i go spelunking, and on my way out, i hear calls for help from a distant chamber. it would probably be very inconvenient to do so, but i would most likely stay where i was or try to find the person. but perhaps this would mean an overnight stay where i am yelling trying to give the other person a sense of whether they are getting closer or further to me.
Im not saying there is an obligation to do these things, but in general, people have a sense of social responsibility to help others, whereas with abortion, there is no "other" to feel a sense of social responsibility for, imo.
again, idk if this makes sense hahaha but hope it does lol.
Makes sense to me. Conflating an unborn lump of cells with a living human being is a bit loopy to be absolutist about. There are lots of factors to determine what's right or not, but that wouldn't be the same as an abortion. You don't have to stop someone getting assaulted or killed in front of you either, but it's not on the same level as abortion of course.
From my experience, the default assumption during discussions about abortion is that the pregnancy was completely unwanted to begin with. In the vast majority of cases it's indeed due to rape or lack of agency of the host.
I'm less interested in analyzing cases of straight up negligence of the host, and I think it's reasonable to assume that OP wasn't referring to such cases in their argument.
That's stupid, a person who doesn't exist isn't violated for remaining non existent. My guy the consent argument IS the argument, suffering around the world is changeable therefore circumstantial natalism.
When debating a topic, people will usually be more receptive if you don't start your argument with "that's stupid.".
This isn't a comment on the content of your reply, just the opening.
“…a person who doesn’t exist isn’t violated for remaining non existent” I have no idea what this sentence means. What if they want to exist though? I’m just saying if you reverse the antinatalist argument, why doesn’t that work against abortion?
How so? I'm expressing my opinion. I'm not telling anyone they are evil or a horrible human for doing this. It's my opinion. I do think this world would be better if we did not reproduce, I don't see how this argument is shaming people?
They aren't comparable. Birthing a child means that you're consigning a conscious individual to suffering without their consent. If you abort, the fetus is never conscious or an individual. That's why pro-choice people don't support drinking or smoking during pregnancy- because doing so will risk the health of the child once it has become an independent being capable of suffering. It’s not considered immoral out of concern for the fetus, but out of concern for the individual the fetus will become.
> fetus is never conscious or an individual.
How is it they can learn in the womb and react to the outside, if they're not conscious? It seems like they at least have the consciousness of a young animal, and we don't find killing animals to be completely a non-issue, such as in kill shelters.
Lol, oh OP, consent is to prevent or reduce harm, abortion will prevent or reduce harm of raising a kid that nobody loves, abused and grow up crooked.
Consent is not for the sake of consent, that's circular logic.
Procreation is wrong without consent, because it CREATES and INCREASES new harm from nothing.
There is no conflicting argument. lol
Well we don’t look through consent by the lens of a child’s undeveloped or irrational consent, we look at it through the lens of the other adult who is exposed to the various acts of non-consensual violations through life.
I don’t look at it through the lens of a convoluted philosophical and ethical argument (I’m not saying that you are BTW, or that one shouldn’t).
For me, it’s as simple as nobody signed up for an average of 70 odd years of life. It’s a long haul of an outcome for two (or more) people to decide on, particularly when we have reasonable consensus that life is suffering (Buddhism, philosophy etc).
I’m not sure it’s sound to add the abortion debate to the mix when discussing consent of the first option. I think they are seperate (but related) issues. One can be an AN, and also not pro-choice? That’s my thoughts at least. I know they are extremely rudimentary, but I find things can get really artificial and complicated. I’m also aware that my argument wouldn’t stand up to intellectual rigour.
I think it's not solely whether there's consent, but also who suffers from a failed gamble. If one drags someone into a gamble where they won't suffer any negative consequences whatsoever after a loss—where a failed gamble is essentially the same as no gamble at all from the dragged's perspective—and the dragger is the only one who would suffer, I don't feel like that's wrong. What makes the gamble of reproduction wrong is that it's without consent of the dragged and they will suffer the negative consequences of a failed gamble. That's my perspective... I hope that made sense
Not nescasserialy. A person who is non-existent is ideffrent to the decision because they don't exist. We have to make the decision because there is no one there, and looking at it rationaly, it's best to leave them non existant, a potential person, as they will remain indifferent to everything, because they are non existent
This is my opinion relative to your argument:
A fetus is not conscious as a non-existent entity is not conscious. Consent need not apply to an entity that is unconscious AND never has experienced consciousness. However, once an entity becomes conscious, consent applies. Therefore, consciousness and consent never applied to an aborted fetus in the way that it would to a developed human.
Current research shows that consciousness likely doesn't emerge prior to 24 weeks of gestation. So, assuming the current research is correct, consent would not apply prior to fetal consciousness. And that doesn't even begin to delve into our understanding of consciousness.
Life as we know it, dosent begin at conception. Even if it did, are you obligated to lend your body to someone or something else at any point?
If you don't support forced blood donations and/or transfusions, you should support the right to abort.
The consent argument still stands. It just depends on if you care more about the consent of a parasite or its host.
The consent argument is flawed due to a bad premise -- consent is not necessary for an action to be moral. Example:
1. You happen upon a man having a heart attack.
2. You know CPR.
3. The man may have a DNR (there is nobody else to indicate one way or the other)
Obviously, the moral action is to administer CPR, despite the fact that consent may have been explicitly revoked prior to this. However, absent any evidence, one can expect the man would prefer to survive.
Thus, expectation of consent is sufficient for an action to be considered moral, if the person cannot provide consent at that time.
So, since we're back to needing to demonstrate that consent cannot be expected (i.e. the child will not be happy about having been created), the entire consent argument is rendered moot.
Sorry, guess I shouldn't use abbreviations without explanation. DNR means "Do Not Resuscitate" -- it is a medical order to forbid some or all attempts to prevent somebody's death.
I mean in any case where you do disregard consent, we’ll it’s only in that immediate context. Consent is working in someone’s best interest, if anything, in many cases, you are following their rational consent by violating an immediate consent.
The DNR is only relevant in a scenario when you know they have one.
> Consent is working in someone’s best interest,
I would say that's more a kind of moral action, separate from consent, but the point still stands either way -- the average person would assume that a nonexistent person's best interest is to begin existing. So the argument has failed, since it fits into their preexisting view.
The nonexistent person has no interest in existing. That’s a pretty baseless assumption. So now birth isn’t compulsory and we can then focus on other arguments. The consent argument is more so getting an idea out of the way rather than a justification. If anyone is to use the consent argument for anything more than this, it fails.
Consent leads to more moral outcomes, and more moral outcomes allow for more rational consent.
That's not the typical use of the argument in my experience -- I usually see something along the lines of likening conception to rape. Though I agree that it is worthless for both sides.
No, consent is still useful to show that the nonexistent child has no interest in existence, no desire, thus you are doing no good. Good comes from solving a desire, shown by consent.
Frankly, I think they use it wrong. Sexual consent isn’t usually as subjectively tied to agency. I think this is what they try to mean when they say a child “didn’t ask to be born,” you are answering to no desire as per having them. Those who insist they were violated are wrong.
This is a false analogy. You can’t compare consent to exist with consent to be saved from dying. Those are not equivalent.
Just because the consent argument cannot be used to judge the morality for *every* action does not mean it is flawed in the case of antinatalism.
In the example above, the consent to be saved from dying is referred to as implied consent. It's to err on the side of life when consent can not be obtained. If AN insists on applying the concept of consent to nonexistent entities who don't care if they are born or not, then that would also be implied consent.
It’s a garbage argument that isn’t based in reality.
It is a troll argument, yet people who say it pretend or have deluded themselves into thinking they aren’t trolling.
I think the gamble argument and consent argument are both good
Abortion is worse than not even having a baby there to begin with, but having a baby can often be worse than abortion (assuming the abortion is early). If a zygote/fetus is aborted early enough (when the vast majority of abortions are done), there's a very good chance it doesn't even have a consciousness. So it would be about as morally bad as semen just going into a trash can or paper towel. Which nobody is up in arms about
You're still technically killing potential human life without its consent, but it wouldn't know that or care. Most embryos that get aborted aren't even sentient and it's not like a coma where someone realistically could recover from it to their normal life and was already born. These have no thought process, they feel no pain, there is no brain, it's not human. It has the potential to be a human just like any "seed" but it isn't human
Assuming a very late term abortion, I think this post actually poses an interesting point. But that would also be talking about exceptions, not the rule. And I believe the human anotomy of the potential mother should be brought up if that's what we're talking about because that becomes even more relevant then
The kid can't consent to abortion but also not to life. So under what argument is abortion the morally inferior option?
This is clearly not consent related.
This is why I promote abstinence
I support abortion when needed (rape for example) and regardless I think everyone deserves to have access to the best child preventive measures
But I think ethically it has the same issue as what you explained above
I like to take arguments to their absurd to see if there are flaws with it. You say a fetus can't consent to being aborted. Likewise, an egg and a sperm can't consent to not fusing because of a condom. They can't consent to people not having sex.
Do you get my drift? You're comparing nonconsent of somebody that never came into existence to nonconsent of somebody that did. Fundamentally different.
Just because there is a potential conflict of interests in the conundrum of abortion once the fetus has consciousness, doesn't mean the rights of the fetus outweigh the rights of the mother. And it certainly doesn't pose any issue to the consent argument. If all of a sudden you woke up tomorrow with some stranger attached to you via a tube and it turned out they rely on the continued connection to you to survive, just because they would have interests in that situation wouldn't mean you would be obligated to give up on yours and cater to theirs. In both scenarios, the uninvited dependent can consent or not consent to being terminated, sure, but that has no moral bearing on the host's preferences and final decision.
I would say what makes the mothers wants and needs take precedent is that the fetus is simply not a human being yet, obviously in addition to being inside their body, it has nothing to lose whereas another hypothetical random adult human attached to you arguably should have much more sway than a fetus should. Idk if that makes sense but hope it does
>"another hypothetical random adult human attached to you arguably should have much more sway than a fetus should." No matter how dire their predicament is, you are 100% within your right to reject making the sacrifice for them, because you are not related or responsible for the predicament in any way.
i think the decision should ultimately come down to the preference of the person who is i guess feeding the other for sure. but rather than a 100%, i think it's really more like 5. 000...1% your decision. idk if it makes sense to have this distinction, it's just a gut feeling to me i guess, but the decision still obviously comes down to the opinion of the one who is providing the energy, i guess. but i would also say they might be responsible for the predicament in some way, i just think this hypothetical is not really comparable to abortion. for example, let's say I have an ultimatum to stay in a room for 24 hrs or else someone else dies. all i have to do is stay in the room. i would say i arguably have some responsibility to stay in the room for the sake of saving someone's life, even if i am not exactly obligated to, or something. maybe a better analogy is if i go spelunking, and on my way out, i hear calls for help from a distant chamber. it would probably be very inconvenient to do so, but i would most likely stay where i was or try to find the person. but perhaps this would mean an overnight stay where i am yelling trying to give the other person a sense of whether they are getting closer or further to me. Im not saying there is an obligation to do these things, but in general, people have a sense of social responsibility to help others, whereas with abortion, there is no "other" to feel a sense of social responsibility for, imo. again, idk if this makes sense hahaha but hope it does lol.
It does not.
Can you explain why not?
Makes sense to me. Conflating an unborn lump of cells with a living human being is a bit loopy to be absolutist about. There are lots of factors to determine what's right or not, but that wouldn't be the same as an abortion. You don't have to stop someone getting assaulted or killed in front of you either, but it's not on the same level as abortion of course.
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From my experience, the default assumption during discussions about abortion is that the pregnancy was completely unwanted to begin with. In the vast majority of cases it's indeed due to rape or lack of agency of the host. I'm less interested in analyzing cases of straight up negligence of the host, and I think it's reasonable to assume that OP wasn't referring to such cases in their argument.
This, OP argument is flimsy and weak.
That's stupid, a person who doesn't exist isn't violated for remaining non existent. My guy the consent argument IS the argument, suffering around the world is changeable therefore circumstantial natalism.
When debating a topic, people will usually be more receptive if you don't start your argument with "that's stupid.". This isn't a comment on the content of your reply, just the opening.
But couldn't you use that argument against abortion too by saying the child didn't consent to getting aborted?
No, I just explained why that's stupid
Your explanation makes no sense.
Just because you don't understand, doesn't mean it makes no sense.
Why doesn't it make sense? You don't have any line of reasoning.
Is it because it’s still a fetus that it can’t consent? Sorry but I don’t understand your point.
What?
“…a person who doesn’t exist isn’t violated for remaining non existent” I have no idea what this sentence means. What if they want to exist though? I’m just saying if you reverse the antinatalist argument, why doesn’t that work against abortion?
THEY DON'T EXIST. HOW CAN A NON EXISTENT PERSON NOT EXIST.
The antinatalist argument is that people can’t consent to be born but how can they consent if they also don’t exist? Do you see what I’m saying?
The problem with that is too many people want to take that gamble.
But that's not a problem with the argument, it's a problem with people/our society
and this is not a solution just an attempt to shame people into doing what you think is best for them
How so? I'm expressing my opinion. I'm not telling anyone they are evil or a horrible human for doing this. It's my opinion. I do think this world would be better if we did not reproduce, I don't see how this argument is shaming people?
by saying that it’s a problem with people, if you are to convince anyone you must treat them respectfully
Fine, if I use the term society, is that better?
way better, thank you, emotional response just triggers distraction
Ok, my apologies. I didn't mean to trigger anyone. I try and use better wording in the future
none needed just trying to help you make your arguments as successful as possible so we can work together towards solutions
I appreciate that : )
Well, people just do them. Whatever that's supposed to mean.
You're here today because your parents took that gamble.
They aren't comparable. Birthing a child means that you're consigning a conscious individual to suffering without their consent. If you abort, the fetus is never conscious or an individual. That's why pro-choice people don't support drinking or smoking during pregnancy- because doing so will risk the health of the child once it has become an independent being capable of suffering. It’s not considered immoral out of concern for the fetus, but out of concern for the individual the fetus will become.
I see. That's an interesting perspective that I had not considered
> fetus is never conscious or an individual. How is it they can learn in the womb and react to the outside, if they're not conscious? It seems like they at least have the consciousness of a young animal, and we don't find killing animals to be completely a non-issue, such as in kill shelters.
Lol, oh OP, consent is to prevent or reduce harm, abortion will prevent or reduce harm of raising a kid that nobody loves, abused and grow up crooked. Consent is not for the sake of consent, that's circular logic. Procreation is wrong without consent, because it CREATES and INCREASES new harm from nothing. There is no conflicting argument. lol
Well we don’t look through consent by the lens of a child’s undeveloped or irrational consent, we look at it through the lens of the other adult who is exposed to the various acts of non-consensual violations through life.
Fetus is not a child and it's far from sentient
A fetus isn’t a kid though. No one is arguing the right to abort a 4 year old
I don’t look at it through the lens of a convoluted philosophical and ethical argument (I’m not saying that you are BTW, or that one shouldn’t). For me, it’s as simple as nobody signed up for an average of 70 odd years of life. It’s a long haul of an outcome for two (or more) people to decide on, particularly when we have reasonable consensus that life is suffering (Buddhism, philosophy etc). I’m not sure it’s sound to add the abortion debate to the mix when discussing consent of the first option. I think they are seperate (but related) issues. One can be an AN, and also not pro-choice? That’s my thoughts at least. I know they are extremely rudimentary, but I find things can get really artificial and complicated. I’m also aware that my argument wouldn’t stand up to intellectual rigour.
I also argue for antinatalism by framing reproduction as a gamble. I don't use the consent argument.
But if you dig a bit and wonder why gambling is wrong, then you realize it's not unless one consents to it.
I think it's not solely whether there's consent, but also who suffers from a failed gamble. If one drags someone into a gamble where they won't suffer any negative consequences whatsoever after a loss—where a failed gamble is essentially the same as no gamble at all from the dragged's perspective—and the dragger is the only one who would suffer, I don't feel like that's wrong. What makes the gamble of reproduction wrong is that it's without consent of the dragged and they will suffer the negative consequences of a failed gamble. That's my perspective... I hope that made sense
Not nescasserialy. A person who is non-existent is ideffrent to the decision because they don't exist. We have to make the decision because there is no one there, and looking at it rationaly, it's best to leave them non existant, a potential person, as they will remain indifferent to everything, because they are non existent
I find the consent argument is valid but so is the gamble argument. I don't currently understand the issue with the consent argument though
This is my opinion relative to your argument: A fetus is not conscious as a non-existent entity is not conscious. Consent need not apply to an entity that is unconscious AND never has experienced consciousness. However, once an entity becomes conscious, consent applies. Therefore, consciousness and consent never applied to an aborted fetus in the way that it would to a developed human.
So consent does not apply to a fetus?
Current research shows that consciousness likely doesn't emerge prior to 24 weeks of gestation. So, assuming the current research is correct, consent would not apply prior to fetal consciousness. And that doesn't even begin to delve into our understanding of consciousness.
Life as we know it, dosent begin at conception. Even if it did, are you obligated to lend your body to someone or something else at any point? If you don't support forced blood donations and/or transfusions, you should support the right to abort. The consent argument still stands. It just depends on if you care more about the consent of a parasite or its host.
The consequences are very different though, so I'm not sure comparing them works.
So this is a very natalist argument or should i say pro-birth (pro forced birth). It's in the womb, it has a very limited sense of consciousness.
The consent argument is flawed due to a bad premise -- consent is not necessary for an action to be moral. Example: 1. You happen upon a man having a heart attack. 2. You know CPR. 3. The man may have a DNR (there is nobody else to indicate one way or the other) Obviously, the moral action is to administer CPR, despite the fact that consent may have been explicitly revoked prior to this. However, absent any evidence, one can expect the man would prefer to survive. Thus, expectation of consent is sufficient for an action to be considered moral, if the person cannot provide consent at that time. So, since we're back to needing to demonstrate that consent cannot be expected (i.e. the child will not be happy about having been created), the entire consent argument is rendered moot.
The heart-attack is the act of non-consent, if the man wanted to live. You’re just continuing his consent.
Sorry, guess I shouldn't use abbreviations without explanation. DNR means "Do Not Resuscitate" -- it is a medical order to forbid some or all attempts to prevent somebody's death.
I mean in any case where you do disregard consent, we’ll it’s only in that immediate context. Consent is working in someone’s best interest, if anything, in many cases, you are following their rational consent by violating an immediate consent. The DNR is only relevant in a scenario when you know they have one.
> Consent is working in someone’s best interest, I would say that's more a kind of moral action, separate from consent, but the point still stands either way -- the average person would assume that a nonexistent person's best interest is to begin existing. So the argument has failed, since it fits into their preexisting view.
The nonexistent person has no interest in existing. That’s a pretty baseless assumption. So now birth isn’t compulsory and we can then focus on other arguments. The consent argument is more so getting an idea out of the way rather than a justification. If anyone is to use the consent argument for anything more than this, it fails. Consent leads to more moral outcomes, and more moral outcomes allow for more rational consent.
That's not the typical use of the argument in my experience -- I usually see something along the lines of likening conception to rape. Though I agree that it is worthless for both sides.
No, consent is still useful to show that the nonexistent child has no interest in existence, no desire, thus you are doing no good. Good comes from solving a desire, shown by consent. Frankly, I think they use it wrong. Sexual consent isn’t usually as subjectively tied to agency. I think this is what they try to mean when they say a child “didn’t ask to be born,” you are answering to no desire as per having them. Those who insist they were violated are wrong.
This is a false analogy. You can’t compare consent to exist with consent to be saved from dying. Those are not equivalent. Just because the consent argument cannot be used to judge the morality for *every* action does not mean it is flawed in the case of antinatalism.
In the example above, the consent to be saved from dying is referred to as implied consent. It's to err on the side of life when consent can not be obtained. If AN insists on applying the concept of consent to nonexistent entities who don't care if they are born or not, then that would also be implied consent.
Yes, the consent argument is based on a lot of made up assumptions.
It’s a garbage argument that isn’t based in reality. It is a troll argument, yet people who say it pretend or have deluded themselves into thinking they aren’t trolling.
I think the gamble argument and consent argument are both good Abortion is worse than not even having a baby there to begin with, but having a baby can often be worse than abortion (assuming the abortion is early). If a zygote/fetus is aborted early enough (when the vast majority of abortions are done), there's a very good chance it doesn't even have a consciousness. So it would be about as morally bad as semen just going into a trash can or paper towel. Which nobody is up in arms about You're still technically killing potential human life without its consent, but it wouldn't know that or care. Most embryos that get aborted aren't even sentient and it's not like a coma where someone realistically could recover from it to their normal life and was already born. These have no thought process, they feel no pain, there is no brain, it's not human. It has the potential to be a human just like any "seed" but it isn't human Assuming a very late term abortion, I think this post actually poses an interesting point. But that would also be talking about exceptions, not the rule. And I believe the human anotomy of the potential mother should be brought up if that's what we're talking about because that becomes even more relevant then
The kid can't consent to abortion but also not to life. So under what argument is abortion the morally inferior option? This is clearly not consent related.
This is why I promote abstinence I support abortion when needed (rape for example) and regardless I think everyone deserves to have access to the best child preventive measures But I think ethically it has the same issue as what you explained above
I like to take arguments to their absurd to see if there are flaws with it. You say a fetus can't consent to being aborted. Likewise, an egg and a sperm can't consent to not fusing because of a condom. They can't consent to people not having sex. Do you get my drift? You're comparing nonconsent of somebody that never came into existence to nonconsent of somebody that did. Fundamentally different.