Abortion and euthanasia

So Veeky Forums I was wondering with myself quite a lot over the past few days on the question of forced euthanasia and its relation to abortion. (I apologize in advance for my English)
For quite a while now the question of abortion has been a subject of public debate, and while it has now shifted toward "women's right vs. pro-life" (and atheism vs. religious), it's still a hot subject when dealing with the limits of human life and value.

To get this out of the way, I think abortion is murder but that it's useful ; the main arguments my friends have been opposing me when I share my views were that it was a threat to women’s freedom, that a fetus wasn't a human being, or that considering conception as the beginning of human's life was arbitrary.

Those arguments felt weak, in that truth can sometimes be inconvenient, that a fetus was a human being "en puissance", and that the conception felt less arbitrary than the limits governments made in terms of weeks of fetus development (not even taking into accounts "special cases" where it's allowed later because of malformations, i.e. some lives are not condoned as worth living).

(cont)

This got me thinking about the elderly with Alzheimer, or people that are not in possession of their mental faculties (vegetables), and that will probably never be again. If abortion is authorized, as a cessation of life by a third party, shouldn’t euthanasia be legal for those extreme cases, which are a strain on their family and society? Can those being be considered people anymore?

>It’s inhuman to treat people that way! Just because they can’t think or we can’t prove they’re conscious doesn’t mean we have a right to end their lives for our convenience!
Well, how do we account for abortion then? Is it illogical to approve of one, yet oppose the other?

>murder is just plain bad! Human life has inherent, inqualifiable value!
Sure, but there are still exceptions. Death penalty, killing an enemy during war, murder in self-defense, abortion, are all murders that society will let you walk away from because they're useful or seen as righteous. Should we add euthanasia to the list?

Yes, there is no reason to keep a permanently braindead body alive. I think you'll find that's a popular belief, so if you were looking for hypocrisy I think you'll be disappointed.

Oh, can I order my doctor to euthanise my alzheimer ridden father?

>For quite a while now the question of abortion has been a subject of public debate, and while it has now shifted toward "women's right vs. pro-life" (and atheism vs. religious)

The reality is that it's gynaecologists' friends & good boys points club, funded by DJ racemixer who realised that rapemixing is the way for some demographics(pro life) vs normal people.

Braidead=dead therefore plugging him/her off is not a murder at least for Catholics.

someone with Alzheimer's is not brain dead.

This post reads like it's autogenerated by some kind of /pol/ chatbot.

we should euthanize the jewish people

they are a parasite that relies on a host to survive and, thus, not actual people

post-birth abortions of jews is totally justified

/pol/ is mostly pro-life because they sincerely believe that niggers and jews aren't the people who abort the most.

/pol/ is pro-abortion of all niggers and kikes

your post is baseless

(13yearoldgrinningatacomputer.jpeg)

haha u got me xd

You're the only person here fixated on "brain-dead", my post adressed it but went beyond that.

While I personally believe Euthanasia should be a valid option for certain cases (with consent of the person to be euthanized), comparing it to abortion is a mistake. Abortion is seen from the perspective of pre-life, you abort a fetus because you are not ready/able to raise a child to adulthood sufficiently. You abort the fetus because otherwise it would cause undue suffering to the parents, the child itself, and possibly strain other systems (orphanages, child services, welfare, etc). Euthanasia is ending someone else's conscious life, and as such needs to be taken much more seriously. In the US this is a touchy issue, but something that is already accepted in certain cases under the name Physician Assisted Suicide which requires the patient to argue for their death.

In other words, abortion is a conscious decision to end the life of something before it can gain consciousness to life itself. No harm, no foul essentially
Euthanasia, as you propose it, is killing someone because they are no longer deemed useful in society, which is horrifying.

Killing innocent human beings is always immoral, the unborn are human beings so abortion is always immoral.

Science defines life as an orgasm in the state of development, a human life from the moment of conception is a human organism that is growing. That makes it a human life so unless you have a good reason to support killing innocent life you have to be anti-abortion. All this stuff about choice and rape is just irrelevant bullshit that distract from the real debate.

>Abortion is seen from the perspective of pre-life, you abort a fetus because you are not ready/able to raise a child to adulthood sufficiently. You abort the fetus because otherwise it would cause undue suffering to the parents, the child itself, and possibly strain other systems (orphanages, child services, welfare, etc).
>killing someone because they are no longer deemed useful in society, which is horrifying.
Well that would be good argument for non-voluntary euthanasia or against abortion too.

The only argument I see here is that a person isn't a person before it gains consciousness.
Would that allow people to kill newborn infant?

>Would that allow people to kill newborn infant?

The philosophically consistent pro-choice person will be pro-infanticide. You can apply nearly every argument they have to a 1 year old child.

Abortion is objectively an infamy
We grew up with it so ut seems okay in our mind, but any civilization from another era (or even the contemporary ones with different culture) would see it as a genocide

It really reminds me of slavery in that people irrationally try to justify it ("a foetus isnt human yet so we can kill it lol"/"niggers arent humans so we can slave dem lol") because it is convenient for them, but it'll definitly go down in history as an abomination

>Would that allow people to kill newborn infant?
The infant is clearly conscious of life, why else would it be crying?

>Well that would be good argument for non-voluntary euthanasia or against abortion too.
Let me rephrase this to tie it all together.

With abortion, it is the decision of the parent to end the fetus' development. I say that is not a problem because the fetus is not conscious of life yet, it is just a mass of living tissue.

With Euthanasia, a 3rd party (government, society, etc) decides the rule and your consciousness or being able to protest doesn't matter.

>You can apply nearly every argument they have to a 1 year old child.

There' is a technique called "trot out a toddler" and it's actually very effective in getting people back to the question of what is a human life.

>The infant is clearly conscious of life, why else would it be crying?
A fetus is clearly conscious of life, why else would it be moving? Are paraplegic not conscious?

>With Euthanasia, a 3rd party (government, society, etc) decides
So like abortion, which has a set limit in terms of weeks. Unless >specifications made by the government<

>With abortion, it is the decision of the parent to end the fetus' development. I say that is not a problem because the fetus is not conscious of life yet, it is just a mass of living tissue.
With non-voluntary euthanasia, it is the decision of the parent to end the life. I say that is not a problem because the individual is not conscious of life anymore, it is just a mass of dying tissue.

>Well, how do we account for abortion then? Is it illogical to approve of one, yet oppose the other?
no, because a born'd human being is a person. And a person has rights. An unborn organism is not a person, so it doesn't have rights, in this case it's called expectation of rights(retirement for example, you have to check certain requirements to acquire the right - age and others in this case, having been born in "being a person"'s case). that's the fundamentals that I know of , but some countries allow it in cases of unhealthy fetus, danger to the mother's life, etc. As of euthanasia it could be TECHNICALLY a crime in a certain place, but still hospitals get around it (assisted death, passive euthanasia, unplugging the machines, etc). The thing is law moves very slowly in pace with society and it's dangerous to change laws just like that, buit it's not a problem since it still happens often and it's not considered illegal,
t. lawfag
sorry about my english btw

>A fetus is clearly conscious of life, why else would it be moving?
Plenty of things move unconsciously that are not alive.

>So like abortion, which has a set limit in terms of weeks. Unless >specifications made by the governmentinb4 "are you seriously using a movie to strawman for euthanasia", yes because euthanasia and abortion are completely separate issues.

Why is the unborn not a person?

Sure, but as you said law can change. And from the positivist point of view (which is to take the birth as the beginning of life because it's convenient), what are the advantages of forbidding non-volontary euthanasia, appart from the slippery-slope argument?

>Plenty of things move unconsciously that are not alive.
My point was that crying doesn't make one conscious.

>Imagine the Euthanasia law like in Logan's Run. You see how abortion term limits are nowhere near this dangerous?
Slippery-slope it is. By using this argument, I could say that abortion is dangerous because at some point society may move toward aborting every fetus that doesn't fit a certain number of criterias.

>My point was that crying doesn't make one conscious.
Says you. We are drawing lines in the sand on where consciousness begins, unless we can agree on what specifically denotes consciousness this argument will continue forever.

>I could say that abortion is dangerous because at some point society may move toward aborting every fetus that doesn't fit a certain number of criterias.
Based on your arguments that is already what you believe

the unborn are human organisms, but they are not persons, thus not holding the rights of a person. see > it's called expectation of rights(retirement for example, you have to check certain requirements to acquire the right - age and others in this case, having been born in "being a person"'s case)
>non-volontary euthanasia
what do you mean? turning off machines? in my understanding it would be ripping them off of their rights with no legal grounds. Because they are persons holding the most important right that is life(OP cited death sentences but some people would argue that they're completely against modern notions of law - and I'm not holding any side on this thread's argument) You might argue that mentally incapable people are ripped off of their rights too but that's another case. they're incapable, it excludes their culpability and responsibility, like children, thus having not the requirements to acquire rights. So they are different principles.

Thinking and feeling are actions that human beings can perform but to say those are what makes you human and gives you the right to life commits the fallacy of confusing cause and effect. You must be a human before you can act like one, so you must be a human before you can think or feel like one.

Well, says you too. Are animals conscious for you?

>Based on your arguments that is already what you believe
?
The law allows abortion past the limit regarding certain criterias yes, that doesnt make it mandatory. Allowing non-voluntary euthanasia wont make it mandatory either. Do you see why thats a bad argument?

...

is this supposed to be a reply to me?

If "thinking and feeling" are not what gives human life value, what does? Why should I value a braindead human over a dog or a tree?

Yeah it is

The fact that it's human is what gives it value. This would naturally excuse the dog or tree. Even if you don't think it has value from the moment of conception this should still be the point that we default to so we don't, in a sense, accidentally kill innocent people since we don't have a definitive answer.

My grandpa got Alzheimer's and I got to watch how he forgot how to talk and dress up and do anything, really. He spent the last couple years of his life bedridden and unconscious.
I see absolutely zero reason why euthanasia shouldn't be allowed. He wasn't actually living at the end, just because he was breathing and had a heartbeat. Even if he had regained consciousness, he still would have had a mind on the level of a baby. I wouldn't want that for myself. I don't want it for anyone else. People should be allowed to die with dignity.

It's an important distinction to make. Someone with Alzheimer's is not equivalent to a braindead person. Abortion is not equivalent to infanticide. You seem to be trying to equate the former two.

Yes. Past stage 6 some people are barely people anymore.

>The fact that it's human is what gives it value.

Circular reasoning. I'm asking why it has value just for being human, if thinking and feeling are not the reasons. Why are humans better than trees?

>Thinking and feeling are actions that human beings can perform but to say those are what makes you human and gives you the right to life commits the fallacy of confusing cause and effect
I never claimed that to think is to have the right to live. i don't exactly disagree but life is the most fundamental right and to modify law to fit utilitarian convictions is pretty dangerous. As me and others anons pointed a lot of places allow assisted death which is just a way of getting around the positivism so it makes this whole argument kinda pointless. If you wanna go the principle and fundamentals way I don't see how what you said refutes my statement. It's not a cause and effect fallacy is codified norms to protect your body of rights in face of the future and society(a guide if you will).
Anyway I believe I clarified OP's doubts as to why it's codified the way it is, but there's too much people here on ideological arguments like and his dumb fuck analogy, and others pure utilitarian or "muh feels" people, not addressing the actual thing

I have a preference for my own species.

>but there's too much people here on ideological arguments like (You) and his dumb fuck analogy

That's not an analogy.

At the very least you could point to the potential for the unborn to develop the ability to think and feel as what gives it value.

humanities are killing this board.

the rest are source contests, and /pol/ baiting. We dont have enough humanities

I don't personally have much against euthanasia and suicide, both are quite sound things for me to happen in person's life and quite justifyable in many cases, however in the case of euthanasia the question I'd usually have is who's have the authority to decide about whether a person is ought to be killed or not, since if it's purely government decided, then I don't think I'd really trust the system to provide sufficient results with its many errors, thus I would rather not have euthanasia in place in such cases.

However if it's the person oneself that decides to end its life, then there still needs to be a procedure to see whether their explanation is to be accepted and this could be possibly still faked/abused in my opinion, but could be acceptable in some cases.

The other way is for the person's nearest to ask for doctors to end life of their relative, but that could be kind of problematic as well as it could be abused by people to get someone's possesions faster even though the euthanasia isn't really neccessary or justifyable, so it's really hard for me to agree with most vague system of euthanasia implementation, though I am the supporter of the concept self and could see some systems being applicable and implemetable in our society.

The distinction relies on the birth, which, related to the development of the infant, is quite arbitrary