The Cliff: a thought experiment on abortion

[Zhavric]

I'm going to address your replies in terms of the cliff metaphor

1. Whether you are or are not a parent. - Whether or not I already saved a kid from a cliff dictates whether or not I can save another one? That doesn't make sense.
2. How many people are in your family. - Same as above. "I've already saved five kids. The sixth one gets to drop." Doesn't sound moral to me.
3. What activities you will spend your time doing. - What activities I have available to me dictates whether I save this kid from this cliff. Nope. Not a moral concern.
4. The possibility of other children being born. - The only sense I could see from this would be some twisting around where it turned into "if I don't have an abortion then I won't be able to have more kids". I'd be okay with calling that moral but that seems REALLY rare.
5. Fear of the unknown. - I don't know what might happen and it's scary so it's moral to drop the kid. No.
6. Changing the priorities you have for the other members of your family. - Other people I love and care about might be highly inconvenienced if I don't drop the kid. Yikes. These are not sounding moral.
7. The possibility of losing someone you come to care about. - I don't know about you, but if someone said, "Drop that kid off the cliff or I'm LEAVING you" I'd let them walk away.
8. Hormonal changes. - The chemistry in my body is changing so I can throw the kid off the cliff. Just... wow.
9. Changes to future health risks. - Again, this one I would call moral AND super rare.
10. Social embarrassment and stigma - I'm embarrassed to be on this cliff and I hope no one sees me toss this kid to their doom. Ick. No. Not moral.
11. The decreased ability to find a spouse whom you can marry and raise children with. - If I save this kid's life I might not be able to find a spouse so I had better drop them. Wow...
12. The loss of friends and family - See 7
13. The loss or degradation of your professional career - It's another debate entirely as they're not followed so well, but there are laws against that.
14. The autonomy not to love someone you haven't chosen to love - I don't love this kid. I don't even know them. So it's cool to toss them down the cliff. Not cool at all.

2 for 14? Not good.

This is the fundamental thing about this analogy that you guys don't like: you call it a "bad analogy" because you think it doesn't factor in all these other concerns, but that's not what's happening here. What's happening is that it's FILTERING OUT the bad so-called "justifications". It highlights just how little these allegedly big concerns when weighing them against a life. That doesn't make for a bad analogy. It makes for cutting though irrelevant arguments.

It's like if I were an alcoholic and you told me, "Zhav drinking booze is like drinking poison. You're KILLING yourself with every drink." and I counter with "Well your analogy is bad because it doesn't take into account things like how delicious rum is or how I forget about my problems when I'm drunk or how hilarious I become". The answer back isn't "Oh, you're right it is a bad analogy." The answer is "THOSE DON'T JUSTIFY POISONING YOURSELF". Likewise with this analogy saying "Well, I might get embarrassed about some aspect of this [your number 10]" isn't a moral justification for abortion or throwing a kid off a cliff.

[Sigfried]

I'm going to address your replies in terms of the cliff metaphor

That's an interesting choice. I was not offering those answers metaphorically, you asked for more reasons and I gave them. Is your metaphor meant to encompass all of abortion, or just the one aspect: finance vs life?
I'm not going to deal with them as part of the metaphore unless I can understand a good reason to do so.

1. Whether you are or are not a parent. - Whether or not I already saved a kid from a cliff dictates whether or not I can save another one? That doesn't make sense.

No, I'm saying some people do not want to be parents. They don't want responsibility for children or a relationship with a child etc... They do not want to carry on their genetic line and so forth. They have an abortion because they don't want to be a parent.

2. How many people are in your family. - Same as above. "I've already saved five kids. The sixth one gets to drop." Doesn't sound moral to me.

You didn't ask me to weigh these against the life value, you only asked what other reasons there were. This is still a reason.

3. What activities you will spend your time doing. - What activities I have available to me dictates whether I save this kid from this cliff. Nope. Not a moral concern.

Why not? How you choose to spend your life is pretty integral. Should we make everyone slaves to pay for more babies? Are you willing to be a slave to pay for babies? If you give me all your money, I'll make sure to donate it to a children's charity for you. Game for that?

4. The possibility of other children being born. - The only sense I could see from this would be some twisting around where it turned into "if I don't have an abortion then I won't be able to have more kids". I'd be okay with calling that moral but that seems REALLY rare.

Well, if you plan on having one child only, and you abort the first, then you could well have the next. But if you have the first, you could well abort the next. Abortion and birth control are a means to have control over how many children you have and when you have them.

5. Fear of the unknown. - I don't know what might happen and it's scary so it's moral to drop the kid. No.

People make such decisions all the time. Acting out of fear is quite common. Again, you are twisting a reason into a justification, the two are very diferent. Had you asked me for justifications, I'd have argued them, but you just asked for reasons.

6. Changing the priorities you have for the other members of your family. - Other people I love and care about might be highly inconvenienced if I don't drop the kid. Yikes. These are not sounding moral.

Why not, if I have to choose between a stranger and my family, I'll choose my family every time. That's quite normal and on balance, moral since I owe my family a greater duty and obligation.

7. The possibility of losing someone you come to care about. - I don't know about you, but if someone said, "Drop that kid off the cliff or I'm LEAVING you" I'd let them walk away.

Again, I wasn't using it as part of an analogy, but depending on who the person was, and if I really beleived them, I might well drop the kid.

8. Hormonal changes. - The chemistry in my body is changing so I can throw the kid off the cliff. Just... wow.

Again, never intended as a direct comparison to dropping children from cliffs.

9. Changes to future health risks. - Again, this one I would call moral AND super rare.

Fine.

10. Social embarrassment and stigma - I'm embarrassed to be on this cliff and I hope no one sees me toss this kid to their doom. Ick. No. Not moral.

Obviously it has no place in the cliff analogy.

11. The decreased ability to find a spouse whom you can marry and raise children with. - If I save this kid's life I might not be able to find a spouse so I had better drop them. Wow...

Way more common than you might imagine.

13. The loss or degradation of your professional career - It's another debate entirely as they're not followed so well, but there are laws against that.

No, not really.

14. The autonomy not to love someone you haven't chosen to love - I don't love this kid. I don't even know them. So it's cool to toss them down the cliff. Not cool at all.

You clearly haven't paid a lot of attention to human history or motivations.

2 for 14? Not good.

They were never offered for your judgement or scoring. They were trying to educate you to the range of factors that go into someones decision making since you hadn't managed to consider any of them in your list of why someone might seek an abortion.

This is the fundamental thing about this analogy that you guys don't like: you call it a "bad analogy" because you think it doesn't factor in all these other concerns, but that's not what's happening here. What's happening is that it's FILTERING OUT the bad so-called "justifications". It highlights just how little these allegedly big concerns when weighing them against a life. That doesn't make for a bad analogy. It makes for cutting though irrelevant arguments.

Filtering out is basically just ignoring them. So that makes it not an analogy but a simplification, a reductionist scenario that is neither realistic nor very relevant to the purpose you choose to put it.

It's like if I were an alcoholic and you told me, "Zhav drinking booze is like drinking poison. You're KILLING yourself with every drink." and I counter with "Well your analogy is bad because it doesn't take into account things like how delicious rum is or how I forget about my problems when I'm drunk or how hilarious I become". The answer back isn't "Oh, you're right it is a bad analogy." The answer is "THOSE DON'T JUSTIFY POISONING YOURSELF". Likewise with this analogy saying "Well, I might get embarrassed about some aspect of this [your number 10]" isn't a moral justification for abortion or throwing a kid off a cliff.

You aren't killing yoruself with every drink, that too is a gross over simplification. Indeed, if booze helps you be more relaxed, it could well be helping you live longer provided you don't over do it. That is because stress is a huge detriment to how long you live and your overall health.

Analogies are good when people are having trouble understanding something, or you need to have a perspective shift. Here, you are trying to perspective shift. But its not very efffective.

The biggest problem with your analogy is it uses a baby, and a great many people don't place a fetus on moral equivielency with a baby. I don't. The other problem is you only provide a single counter balancing concern as where abortion comes with a whle host of them. While you may find each, in isolation unworthy, many of them in combination may be. People make decisions weighing in a wide range of considerations. Your analogy only distorts the picture, it doesn't clarify it.

[Zhavric]

The other problem is you only provide a single counter balancing concern as where abortion comes with a whle host of them. While you may find each, in isolation unworthy, many of them in combination may be.

Lots of trivial reasons add up to a non-trivial reason? Is that your argument? I just want to make sure I understand it before I reply.

[Sigfried]

Lots of trivial reasons add up to a non-trivial reason? Is that your argument? I just want to make sure I understand it before I reply.

They certainly can. Since you are using analogies, many ounces add up to a pound. Many inches add up to a mile. Many small reasons often do amount to a large motivation.

[Zhavric]

They certainly can.

How many trivial reasons do I need before it's acceptable to physically assault you? I'm not threatening to assault you. But I want to know how many it takes before you say, "I'm not pressing charges for that guy breaking my spine, officer. He had reason(s) X, so that means he was morally justified to breaks my bones." Can you tell me more about X?

[Sigfried]

How many trivial reasons do I need before it's acceptable to physically assault you? I'm not threatening to assault you. But I want to know how many it takes before you say, "I'm not pressing charges for that guy breaking my spine, officer. He had reason(s) X, so that means he was morally justified to breaks my bones." Can you tell me more about X?

I suppose that all depends on how trivial they are. The less trivial, the less it would take.

But I'm only using the word trivial because you used it. I don't think the reasons I offered were, in fact, trivial, that is your characterization. An inch could be called trivial, but enough of them still equals a mile.

You also make another poor analogy here, equating legal justification with moral decision making. The two are not the same. Legal argument has rather precise balance points. You don't argue morality with the law, you argue the law with the law and the law does not prescribe morality beyond civic duty to follow said law.

So with the law, you either are fully justified or not justified at all. With a moral dilemma, there are degrees of justification, though ultimately one decision.

[Zhavric]

I don't think the reasons I offered were, in fact, trivial

In a life or death situation anything that's not either life or death is trivial. Again: that's the whole point of the thought experiment. So abortion supporters can see what their flimsy justifications actually sound like when you pull the rug of the leftist echo chamber out from under them. To be sure, there are no amount of trivial reasons that magically add up to justifying letting a kid fall off a cliff. Could you even imagine how insane that would sound? "Well, you didn't want your wallet to fall and the kid had on ugly clothes and you'd always wanted to see someone plummet first hand and you had a little cramp in your leg and the kid was REALLY whiny and there's like 10 other similar reasons so I guess it's okay that I let them FALL to their DOOM." It's mental. Same thing with abortion. "Well, I don't want to go through childbirth and I don't have the money and I already have a kid and I just can't think of a baby name and I don't really want the stress of being a mom so it's totally okay for me to take this bundle of cells that's on its way to becoming a human and deliberately stop it."

No.