Bill Burr on abortion
(youtu.be)
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It's absolutely arbitrary, but it's based on how much investment is actually made into the pregnancy. This is why rape is seen as a legitimizing factor in an abortion. By definition, the pregnancy was non-consensual, and the disruption of the woman's life was an injury to her. She has no investment in it. In fact, it's highly likely that the father who raped her doesn't either. So, literally no one is invested in the child. No one wants it.
As such, it is valued less than that of a baby whom was conceived intentionally by a couple who want to bring it into the world. They might have already brought equipment and baby clothes. Selected a room in their house for it to live in. It's already invested in as a much as any child is. This is why it's near universally accepted that if a man violently punches the mother in the stomach and kills the fetus, it is considered a murder of a baby.
We can even talk about the times mothers will have funerals for miscarriages. It's not even a baby to them. It's not a fetus. It's a 6 year old little boy who never aged long enough to get there.
But to a rape victim, it's horrific violation of a woman's life. A permanent reminder that she can be overpowered and forced into the life of a mother through violence. In time, she will resent the baby and the child for being a reminder of that helplessness and brutality.
The subjective investment of partnes is actually why babies are basically built to illicit an empathy response in women. The babies (and children they become) are infinitely abounding with love and adoration for their parents. Its a survival mechanism to guarantee that the baby is cared for. It dies if it's not cute.
That, fundamentally, is the problem. You're going to have to end a life if you tolerate it at any point. You can't enforce an objective standard completely on a subjective problem.
Rape is not a legitimizing factor. It only seems that way because society is currently geared towards whatever is most convenient for the woman instead of what is moral.
I don’t see how someone wanting you or not changes the value of your life. Either your life has value independently of your guardian’s desires, or people should be able to kill orphans since they aren’t wanted either.
It’s only a subjective problem if you don’t believe in morality. If you are a Christian, it’s not subjective at all.
That's my point. Morality is subjective by definition, and I'm not a Christian, and I don't assert objective morality because it's not true.
Christians assert objective morality because most religions do. That doesn't make it true. That doesn't mean Moral Relativism is correct, because it's not even a valid ethic. But it doesn't make morality not subjective.
I guess the most important question for you is: what does change the value of life?
Can you define morality? I assume you believe there is an objective reality, along with an objective truth, but let me know if I'm wrong about that.
Yes, objective reality and truth exist (it's impossible to actually get to some kind of 100% certain objective truth or understanding of reality, but we know reality exists independent of our interpretation or perception of it).
I'm using morality to define: the underlying philosophical foundations of people or individuals that inform their choices on creating social ethics for operating within a society.