Hacker News new | ask | show | jobs
by Argonaut998 1 day ago
Because if you believe this fetus to be a human life then it follows believing that if it is terminated, it is akin to murder/infanticide.

I don't know why people are being so (deliberatively?) reductive ITT.

4 comments

Yes but... you used the word "belief". Nothing scientific there.

If the mother was raped and knows for sure she will not bring up her rapist's kid ... or if there is a possibility that letting the baby be born will kill the mother, MY belief is to follow the mother's wishes.

It's her body and her life.

Whether or not a fetus is human life isn't a scientific concept. Pro-choice people "believe" that it isn't. That's not scientific either.
> Pro-choice people "believe" that it isn't.

Not all of us I would bet. One can believe the fetus is a human life, and still want to allow the mother ending it. Sure it’s rough, but this is a classic case of conflicting interest. Pretending the fetus isn’t human yet is just one of several ways to side with the mother’s decision. Malformations or danger to the mother’s life are two others. And then there’s the more radical position that as long as the fetus hasn’t left the womb, the mother’s autonomy is still more important than its life.

This last one is less a belief, (one week before birth the baby is clearly viable), than it is a value system. Though I’d be curious to see the statistics on countries that allow abortion up to birth itself. If it turns out practically no one aborts after 4 months or whatever, that particular point would be moot.

> This last one is less a belief, (one week before birth the baby is clearly viable), than it is a value system.

Upthread, a response to me indicated very clearly that, even at 1 day before delivery, it should be the mother's choice.

There's a lot of nuance here, with clearly many people stuck in denial: this is not a binary question. There's a spectrum, all the way from 1 day after conception to 1 day before delivery.

The pro-choicers are pretending that all the pro-lifers want to outlaw the morning after pill. The pro-choicers are also not doing themselves any favours by actually, on this story alone, positioning themselves as supporting 1-day-before-delivery abortions.

Everyone has a line they'll draw. Not everyone's line is in the same place.

The fetus has different DNA from its mother, so it's not "her body".
> Yes but... you used the word "belief". Nothing scientific there.

And you think the opposing arguments are?

But it’s not. The child has different DNA, and a different life.

• Survival rates begin to appear (still low) around 22 weeks (roughly 5–35% depending on the study, active treatment, and hospital, with high rates of complications). https://publications.aap.org/pediatrics/article/154/4/e20240...

And in Italy, she has 90 days to do it legally and for free.

And please stop that rape red herring. The overwhelming majority of abortions are carried out as contraceptive methods.

Even so, you are deliberately dismissing rape victims that got pregnant[1], what is their recourse? Or do you just care about the rights of a fetus while it's in utero and then they're on their own as soon as they pop out?

[1]https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/fullar...

Nothing in your link contradicts the fact that the vast majority of abortions are not terminating rape-related pregnancies.
Maybe because that is not the argument I am trying to make?
> Even so, you are deliberately dismissing rape victims that got pregnant[1], what is their recourse?

To have the legally available and free abortion that is offered within the first 90 days of their rape?

I linked to a study exploring the numbers in the US states where abortion was banned, not referring to Italy here. My response was to the "rape victim red herring" which i find incredibly distasteful.
You are being downvoted, and I don't know why. The majority of abortions are a result of people getting pregnant and not wanting a baby. And that's alright, there's nothing wrong with that.

I say this as someone that is 100% pro-abortion. If a woman wants to not have a baby, it's her body, and her right to decide. The discussion ends there.

Life is hard in the best of times. It must suck to be brought into a world where your mother doesn't even fucking want you around.

Moreover, it's probably preferable that people that make poor decisions regarding pregnancy opt themselves out of the gene pool.

That wasn’t really my question, was it?
This logic never made sense to me.

The woman is clearly a human life too, and every western country has a right to self defense. A fetus is an imminent danger to women, their health, and their property. They have a right to remove it from their own body to stop that.

Or am I allowed to unconsentually put myself inside anyone for months, eating the food from their blood like a tapeworm, causing chronic pain, permanently changing their hormones, potentially risking death, just to come ripping my way out of their body and then demanding 18 years of pay and attention?

Am I entitled to an unconsenting healthy person's blood or organs or marrow if I'm going to die without it and we know they're "probably" going to be fine?

If someone is morally opposed to abortion, they don’t need to have one. That’s where it should end, there’s no need to control the bodies of others due to a moral belief that other people don’t hold.
The whole point of the debate is that the fetus has no choice during an absorption, not some “moral” ground that you are imposing to someone else.
That is unfortunate, but the opposing view entitles a fetus to use of another persons body. This is something I am not entitled to, even if a blood transfusion, marrow transplant, or organ donation would save my life with certainty.
The fetus is inside of an adult human with a life they’re living. The decision is theirs to make, nobody else should have input, but unfortunately that isn’t the case in some places.

Someone having an abortion have zero effect on a person who is against abortion but has never met them. The anti-abortion person should mind their own business.

I don’t believe in god and think religion is generally harmful but I don’t go around campaigning to eliminate religious freedoms. I don’t tell religious people I think their beliefs are ridiculous, I keep it to myself.

Abortion wasn’t even an issue in the US until Atwater->Reagan realized there were a bunch of religious people they could manipulate into voting for the GOP by making abortion a wedge issue.