Less punishment for killing when it is inside the womb? (part 2)

Do you think the penalty for killing inside the womb should be less than killing outside the womb?
I mean when the killing took place without the woman's permission. Some other person came along and caused the fetus to die.


This question is mostly directed at pro-choicers.

And to further clarify for the sake of argument here, the fetus is at the furthest along stage of development where you think it is still okay for the woman to exercise her choice (if she so chooses).


Also suppose for the sake of argument here that a hypothetical situation exists where the fetus was killed, but the woman's body was otherwise not affected in any way (I don't want us to get distracted from the primary issue at hand).

Or, if you want to look at it another way, the perpetrator will already be punished separately for however his actions [directly] affected the woman. For example, maybe a man sucker punches a woman really hard in the belly. How much more should the punishment be if the woman happened to be pregnant at the time and it resulted in the fetus dying? That is the question.

The critical question I am trying to pull out from pro-choicers is how much do you think the value of an unborn life is worth?
I am trying to shed some light on the hypocrisy that it is so bad when the baby dies and the woman did want it, but pro-choicers try to make it out to be no big deal if the woman wanted to get rid of it.


Maybe this question might be a little too abstract for some, so let me try to outline a concrete example that could illustrate this philosophical issue:

Man #1 sneaks into an incubator room and kills an ultra-premature baby. The baby was born at only 22 weeks gestation (that's considered before "viability"). The doctors were not sure whether the baby was going to be able to pull through and make it.

Man #2 causes the baby to die while it is still growing inside its mother, 22 weeks into the pregnancy, same age.

Should the first man be punished more than the second man in this situation?
Would it be any different if the woman gave her permission?


To help focus on the point, maybe for the sake of hypothetical argument we can imagine there is advanced futuristic medical technology involved. With the push of a button, someone else can just make that fetus vaporize. The woman doesn't feel a thing. Ever see that Star Trek episode "Mirror, Mirror" (1967) ? They get trapped in an evil alternate universe. There's this piece of technology in Kirk's quarters with a viewing screen. At the press of a button Kirk's mistress could make anyone onboard the ship disappear.

__________________________________________

Now some pro-choicers might reply: "If the woman is killed and the fetus dies, no additional penalties are necessary as a murder charge would already be forthcoming and should carry enough of a penalty in and of itself."

If the woman herself was killed, why should it matter whether she was pregnant or not? Why should there be any additional charges?

This might not even be murder per se, it could be reckless manslaughter. Why should the perpetrator be punished more severely if the victim was pregnant?

 

You are clearly missing the point. Its not about being in the womb. Its about being dependent on and using the body of another person. You don't have any right to take over somebody's body for your benefits, even if you are dying. For example, I can't demand your kidney if mine is failing.

 

That is only one argument, one we have discussed in other discussions.

Shall I take it then that you concede everything in my opening post, and that your argument in favor of the woman being able to kill rests entirely on the violinist analogy?
(which we will not be discussing or getting into here)

 

No I don't. The difference between abortion and your examples is the woman's body. That is the whole point and you refuse to even discuss it. You can't have a conversation about abortion without talking about a woman's right to her body.

 

That's not true. I am more than happy to discuss it. Just not in this thread.
Because we constantly seem to get distracted.

And my opening post is a somewhat complicated argument in itself.
There's no reason to derail the discussion off into something else.

Um... You do realize that not every discussion in the Abortion section is about a discussion on all aspects of abortion in general?
You don't get free reign to talk about anything about Abortion just because a thread happens to be about something related to Abortion.
If we operated that way, we would never get anywhere in discussions.

Now, if you'd like to talk about the topic, we can do that.
But the topic in this thread is not about Abortion in general.

You mentioned your argument, that's fine, but let's please not derail this thread discussion now.
A lot of people here seem to not know what "on topic" means.

I also think the fact that you quoted my entire long opening post in the second post was totally unnecessary.

 

The whole pro-choice position is a woman's right to her body. If you don't want to discuss it then you aren't in this debate anymore. Its like refusing to discuss money in a tax debate because it has been done elsewhere.

 

If that was the only pro-choice argument, then I agree that the subject in my opening post would be irrelevant.

 

That is the main pro-choice argument brought up by virtually every pro-choice argument. You can address little arguments if you want but you haven't refuted the pro-choice position.

 

I think you have the blinders on a little bit, and assume all the rest of the pro-choice side thinks as yourself.

 

@Distraff, best of luck to you. ;-0

 

Well, there were about four different statements, arguments, scenarios...a real mess..

The value of the unborn is worth EXACTLY what the woman carrying the unborn places on it.

The hypocrisy of pro-Choicers is all in your head and imagination...

Why?

Why do you concentrate so much on bad things happening to women ?

 

I wasn't. In my ideal scenario in this type of hypothetical, something bad would happen to the fetus but not the woman.
But pro-choicers would say that is not realistic, and just want to completely dismiss it, so I had to come up with a scenario that would be a little bit more plausible, if it would help pro-choicers think about this hypothetical.

Now if by "bad things" happening to the woman you are only talking about what happened to the fetus, when it was against her desires, then that would be a completely separate topic. But I'm going to assume for now that is not what you were talking about here.

 

Why what exactly? Sorry, you'll have to be a little more specific for me to answer your question.

 

Why ""outline a concrete example that could illustrate this philosophical issue"" ???

 

Pro-Choicers don't have to think about hypotheticals ( and other science fiction)….they deal in reality and the reality of fetuses not having rights until birth and women having the right of bodily autonomy..

 

Because many people seem to be able to think in concrete examples much better than they are able to think in abstract concepts and general issues.

Sometimes a hypothetical can help us see a situation in reality better, and help pull it apart so we can examine it in all its aspects.

It can help us focus in on something in particular, without getting distracted by everything at once. Because real-life situations can be very complicated and difficult to think about, or at least do so entirely logically.

 

So did you have a question on abortion?

Or just want to discuss meaningless "hypotheticals" ?


In other words, my usual question to you, did you have a point?

 

I already explained to you. If you did not understand that, I'm not sure what else to say.

Maybe it is you who is not answering the right things to my questions about your questions about what my thread was about.

If that is the case, then you may not be asking your questions well enough for me to be able to give you the type of answers you are looking for.

A point about what? Can I ask you to clarify?
Are you talking about a point to this thread? Or something more specific than that?

 

LOL, What?

Uh, ya, a point to thise thread would be nice.....for a change...


BTW, all your questions have been answered many times in the past.....and mean nothing...


For instance this silly scenario:

""Man #1 sneaks into an incubator room and kills an ultra-premature baby. The baby was born at only 22 weeks gestation (that's considered before "viability"). The doctors were not sure whether the baby was going to be able to pull through and make it.""


The answer is simple, the man murdered a BORN person, it's called murder.......was there a question????

 

There isn't a single penalty for killing "outside the womb". Some are vilified, imprisoned or executed and others get medals and a parade. There will be countless relevant factors to each and every situation, even the relatively straight forwards ones. The victim being a foetus and/or pregnant woman is just one of those countless potential factors. The entire picture needs to be taken account of in determining a sentence (or indeed conviction).

 

That entire statement sounds like some sort of fallacy, but I am not sure which one it is. I am trying to look it up right now.
Maybe far-fetched equivocation, cognitive closure fallacy, "it's too complicated", obscuring/deflecting with complexity, giving a reason not definitively defined, or based on the existence of complexity itself, which isn't really truly a fallacy itself but misleadingly creates the appearance of being a proper argument.

 

I'm not saying it's too complicated, only that it isn't as simple as you'd like to imagine. The simple fact is that there isn't a singular punishment for "killing outside the womb" so why would you expect there to be a singular punishment for "killing inside the womb". In all cases, the circumstances of the killing inform the punishment (if any at all), not just the fact of the death alone.

 

Maybe "far-fetched equivocation, cognitive closure fallacy, "it's too complicated", obscuring/deflecting with complexity, giving a reason not definitively defined, or based on the existence of complexity itself, which isn't really truly a fallacy itself but misleadingly creates the appearance of being a proper argument.""" ?

 

It's too late to go back and edit it now, but maybe I meant obfuscation.

 

Is that the title of this thread ?