Abortion; Why?

I don't trust utilitarians & libertarian economists.

"Utilitarianism* claimed to be scientific & to have superseded moral casuistry; in fact it had only given a superficial cogency to a collection of moral-sounding slogans." ~ John Stuart Mill 'On Utilitarianism'

*In other words free market monetarism.

But your argument is quite utilitarian no? (I've only scanned it, but it seems to be based on a 'needs must' social pragmatism).

Plus I wouldn't classify them as nailed on libertarian per se. They're not 'do what thou wilt' in all articles. In economics, certainly. In social issues I've certainly read articles that argue for, aid intervention say (but the 'right' / small government aid intervention naturally ). Or scientist intervention in governance. Or what have you. 'Tell others what they shouldst', if you like

And beyond all that, as Yods says, if someone framed those UN stats elsewhere, would they suddenly become more/less valid in and of themselves?

I don't quite get how you can dismiss the content outright without at least pointing out foibles in presentation or what have you. At least they source enough for you to form your own opinions on their opinions.

Ach, do what thou wilt

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You extrapolate...how? Guesstimating? See below for more.

I think you underestimate 1) the rate of change (the Islamic world is showing plenty of signs of upheaval right now) and 2) the connection between unchanging culture and birth rates. You seem to be assuming, for example, that these cultures won't see lowered birthrates until they become blissfully democratic, or secular, or what have you, but there are plenty of instances in which that isn't true. Would it surprise you to learn, for example, that the uber-Islamic Iran was already below replacement birth level as of 2006? And that this rate (1.9) is less than a third as high as it was as recently as 22 years ago?

I'd rather you just read my response again. I'm saying exactly what I'm saying: the fact that a country imports food says absolutely nothing, inherently, about their ability to feed themselves. If you want to support that statement, you have to do it with more than that fact.

How do I know for certain that you're not a reanimated and/or time-traveling Hitler impersonating a Brit arguing about overpopulation on a movie message board? No reason, I guess.

Oy; trying to frame this as some sort of patriarchal control issue isn't gonna fly, and doesn't really make any argument. It just rather transparently tries to put the other side on the defensive. And you must think me quite stupid if you believe I won't notice that you've put the assumption that I'm "obsessed" with the issue into the very premise of your question. Next up, you can ask me if I've stopped beating my wife.

As I said, the only thing inherently emotional about my arguments on abortion is that I start with the presupposition that human life ought to be protected simply by virtue of it being human life. If you have an example of some emotionally-based argument I've made apart from this presupposition, by all means, show me. But I'm pretty sure I haven't.

Quite true. But that would represent quite a shift in position from "overpopulation is real and about to destroy us all and SOYLENT GREEN IS PEOPLE" to "well, things are getting better, but they might start getting worse again."

I haven't suggested that overpopulation cannot possibly ever become a problem, or that birth rates won't rise. I'm arguing that they're already falling dramatically and thus the doomsday scenarios about overpopulation are in conflict with current birthing trends.

Certainly. But if you want to dispute something I think you need a reason beyond the observation that statistics could, in fact, be made up. Also, I assume you didn't really read much of that, because at one point it cites UN estimates, as well:

"Assuming fertility falls at current rates, says the UN, the world’s population will rise from 6.8 billion to 9.2 billion in 2050, at which point it will stabilise (see chart 1)."

That's about 40 of the 50 years you mentioned above, and that's well short of your claim above that the global population will "at LEAST double." So either they're blatantly misquoting the UN (which I think someone would have noticed by now), or the UN's wrong, too.

I have no need nor desire to deny this. I deny that we're having children at the same rate now as we were then.

So the UN is in on this? And the birth rates they cite...whichever organization those come from, they're in on it, too? Ditto for the CIA World Fact Book? The article lists its sources. You're be positing a pretty widespread conspiracy if you want to dismiss these numbers. And that's without getting into the fact that you really need to do more than just cite the possibility of an agenda to invalidate data claims. You could use that stance to disbelieve even the raw population totals you mention so ominously.

I don't have an argument really, I just believe that abortion should be up to the individual concerned & that it wouldn't hurt to introduce the concept to the Third World. Socially pragmatic, very probably. I am not sold on massaged figures about population growth. I see no change in population trends in the foreseeable future & I believe we are over populated as a planet, let alone any individual country.

They're utilitarian/libertarian enough.

I don't actually care, you can find stats to 'prove' any tendentious point you want to make. What was it Disraeli said about lies, damned lies & statistics?

As I said, they have their own agenda.

Like I'm going to believe anything Disraeli said.

Massaged how? By whom?

On what basis would you hope to "see" these trends, outside of deciding which statistics you believe and which you don't?

Does this include the statistics about how much the population has grown or will grow, or are those exempt? If they're not exempt, on what basis do you determine that one is reliable, and the other is "massaged"?

Yes, guestimating.


It's been in upheaval for a thousand years. It doesn't change anything.

I'm not assuming anything of the sort, I'm just assuming they won't change in the foreseeable future. I doubt whether many will ever embrace secularism/democracy.

OK. I think I knew that.

No, this is more sophistry. If you can't feed yourself as a nation it is as good a definition of overpopulation as any. It's not just my definition anyway.

There you go ...

Yes, it is a part of the argument though. It has connection to religious/belief system definitions of what humanity is. It is a definite factor for some religions however, to deny that is being naive.

Again, I don't think you are being totally honest with yourself here. It does genuinely seem like a bit of an obsession to me. Maybe I'm reading into something that isn't there though.

Maybe it's a matter of semiotics. This seems like an emotional argument deliberately rationalised for ideological reasons to me.

I think that the whole issue of discussing the abortion of a human foetus is an emotionally based argument to begin with.

Things aren't getting better as a whole even if there are fluctuations. I still see no changes in Third World birth rates.

With the possible exception that Indonesia is stabilising, birth rates are falling in the developed world, however, they aren't in the Third World.


Yeah, sorry I should read it properly, it's getting late. I still think that the population could double in fifty years time, I'm just too lazy to find any 'statistics' to prove it. They are out there. 14 billion by around 2060 does sound a bit high, but it could happen if the birth rates of the Third World continue as they are or even get higher.

'We' aren't. Somebody in the Third World is.

There's a CIA World Fact Book? LOL! You're pulling my leg right? Yeah, birth rates are low in the developed world. I agree with that.

So? I am not positing any conspiracy. If the birth rates in the Third World were not high we would not have seven billion people on the planet. The population has doubled in just five decades. Why do you think this is?

You can keep accusing me of conspiracy theory posits or anything else but I don't really need to accept figures from sources that I don't necessarily trust. You still haven't proved or explained anything yet.

The population of the Third World is rising, whether it will peak or not no one really knows. I believe that in the next 50 - 70 years it will start to create problems. Probably in mass migrations, diminishing food & water resources, energy sources & combined with climate changes will be very detrimental to the political stability of the entire globe.

Prove me wrong. You can't, even with all the speculative numbers you can harvest from the Internet.

Likewise, I can't ... & I'll be dead by then anyway. Unfortunately I believe in reincarnation. I'm thinking of being reborn on Mars.

Er ... hermeneutically re-interpreted then rather than massaged ...


All of these figures/statistics can be inaccurate or conjecture anyway. I don't believe any of them really. I do believe that there are seven billion people on the planet now & there wasn't fifty years ago.


Statistics are still interpretive, whatever the source, & future determinations based on them are not much more than scrying anyhow.

I don't determine anything to be completely reliable. You can go around in these circles as much as you like, but you aren't really proving anything.

lol!

So why take it seriously? What if I guesstimate something entirely different? And if there's no way to favor one over the other...what is the purpose of making this guesstimation in the context of this discussion?

Okay...so...isn't this something your position has to reconcile? That's a quick, massive decline without a major change in government or even the kind of change in culture that one would expect to be necessary. So clearly, either massive cultural change is possible in a short period of time, or else the idea that we need massive cultural change to lead to dramatically lower birth rates is wrong.

The problem is the word "can't." You've only pointed out that they haven't, which isn't the same thing. My analogy from before should still be instructive: eating out doesn't mean I can't cook. Similarly, pointing out that a country imports food doesn't, in and of itself, mean it is incapable of growing enough of its own. I'm not even necessarily disputing your conclusion (though I don't think it's a problem, regardless), I'm simply pointing out that the mere fact that Britain imports food doesn't really demonstrate anything other than that they're better at things other than food production. It says nothing, by itself, about their ability to feed themselves.

The goalposts are moving. Nobody's denying that religion plays a role in one's position. Nor is anyone denying that religion can be used as a pretext to control people, women or otherwise. What I'm denying is that anything like that has even remotely reared its head in this thread. This is a distraction.

Probably. I'm not sure what evidence there even is for it, beyond the fact that I've decided it's worth arguing about. And as a quick persual of the rest of the site will show, I do that for lots of things, and I can't be obsessed with all of them. Either way, it doesn't matter if I'm perfectly level-headed or an obsessive idealogue; the arguments are the thing. This is another distraction.

As I said before, if you consider the belief that human life has special inherent value as "emotional," then sure, my position is emotional. But so are most people's general moral codes, too, so by this definition any argument with any moral component or presupposition (which is pretty much all of them) is "emotional."

But I don't think that's how most people use the word in this context. An emotional argument about abortion is holding up a sign with a picture of an aborted fetus, or describing how ugly the process is, or linking you to a video of babies laughing in slow motion with a Sarah McLachlan song playing in the background. I'm not doing anything like that.

What's the point of calling an argument about abortion emotional if you've decided to define the entire issue as inherently emotional? Once you do that, saying someone is making an emotional argument is literally just saying "you're talking about abortion."

Well, where are you looking? Where are you not seeing the changes?

Indonesia is not stabilising, Indonesia's rate has been dropping for 30 years. The article linked to before also mentioned that parts of Africa are part of the trend, too. How do you reconcile these "possible exceptions"?

So, your argument is "lots of people have statistics, I choose not to believe those ones, and I bet I could find other ones if I wanted to"? Would you have accepted such a response if I'd offered it the first time you mentioned the population of India?

You kind of are, yeah. Either that or you're saying none of these organizations have any idea how to measure or project population. And if that's the case, you'd have to explain why you decide to trust any estimate or projection that you cited to make the case that overpopulation is a problem, too.

Because birth rates were higher than they are now. Now they're lower.

Sure, you don't have to accept figures from any sources you don't necessarily trust. But that'd still leave you to explain why you don't trust them, and why you do trust the ones you do.

Naturally I cannot prove whether or not something will or will not take place in the future. If your position is going to retreat to the safety of "you can't technically prove me wrong," then I think this conversation has run its course.

Okay. Which numbers, and how? And for what purpose?

Well, why do you believe that, then? And if you don't believe any of these numbers, why do you believe that the Third World's birth rate is not declining?

Including all the future determinations you've made, which are the basis for your claim that overpopulation is going to be a massive problem?

I already have. I've proven that you either a) are selectively deciding which statistics to trust and which ones not to, or b) are just completely guessing.

And the force of your earlier rhetoric ("there's nothing quasi about it", "Overpopulation is an inevitability") doesn't really jibe with statements like "I don't determine anything to be completely reliable." You certainly seem to think the threat reliable, and even undeniable.

OK, I'm a bit drunk right now, so I'm going to have to get back to you on this. I really admire your tenacity. You're still flogging a dead horse but don't think that I don't admire your comebacks on this.

You may like this Reuters article here.

You can probably guess what I think of this article. I am more with the replies, which I think you should read:

See, Malthus had no idea that the world’s population and growth would be subsidized by oil. Malthus has always been criticized for his failure to adequately account for technological advances, but there was no way for him to factor in the explosive growth of oil extraction, refining and application to everything from food production, to transportation, to housing, and as a driver for technological advancement itself.

Unrestrained reproduction in third world societies is the dragging brake on this world that will eventually stop all progress toward a better life. That is an “inconvenient truth” to those who would apply the wisdom of a pre-industrial world to “be fruitful and multiply” to a world increasingly as challenged by the pressures of irresponsible reproduction as animal shelters. The first human to live to be 1000 may have already been born.

The undeveloped countries are breeding at a rate they have already proved for many years they cannot provide for. Each day, week, month and year springs forth from their wombs ever more mouths that will have no access to meaningful education or a meaningful way to apply their labor to improve the quality of life in their society. They function solely to produce urine, feces and more of themselves. Their miserable lives have no possible use or purpose except cannon fodder, yet the developed world is ever expected to feed them FOR FREE.

Just because Malthus’ warnings about food shortages seem to have been proven wrong so far (at least to those of us with plenty to eat), it is no reason to not consider the other economic ramifications of never-ending population growth. Burying one’s head in the sand and deriding anyone who dares to challenge this economic conventional “wisdowm” as a Malthusian is no less ignorant than than those who clung to the belief that the earth was flat and lay motionless at the center of the universe.

Until economists get over the beat-down their field endured at the hands of the other sciences over the seeming failure of Malthus and once again consider the full spectrum of ramifications of overpopulation, the world is doomed to ever-worsening unemployment and poverty.


Food for thought eh?

Must sleep off beer ... will be back ...

The numbers that are real & not inside your head?

Because it isn't.

Just a guess after seeing Spaghetti Junction at rush hour.

All you've proven is that you can find statistics to 'prove' your own agenda.

Yes, I probably contradict myself a lot. My country, Holland & a few other European countries are already overpopulated. Just because you say they are not doesn't mean anything. What fascinates me the most is why you need to believe otherwise.

Fair enough. No rush.

I'll take a closer look, but my first response is that it's pretty misanthropic. I feel like it should be incumbent on people worried about Third World populatin growth to see their complaints through to their logical conclusions, because I think if they do, it starts to look different. For example, either they're beyond our reach or not. If they're not, then they will eventually see some kind of increased affluence which will mitigate this. If they are, then there's nothing to worry about because the things that allegedly make their lives so miserable are things which also control population growth, IE: lower life spans, less access to nutrition and healthcare. I feel like people are trying to have it both ways here: to say both that this is going to effect us, but is also going to remain otherwise static.

I also completely reject the idea that someone writing editorials in a First World country is in any kind of position to deem a life of struggle not worth living. I think that's beyond arrogant.

I can't make sense of this response. I asked you which numbers are being "massaged," and by whom, and for what ultimate purpose.

Please don't waste my time, man. You know what I'm on about: you're not counting people, so you are by necessity basing conclusions on population estimates and statistics. You believe some and not others. And you determine which ones you believe...how? The only common thread I see is that you believe the ones that make it seem like we're doomed, and disbelieve the ones that indicate otherwise.

So it'd be a valid retort if I stood in a field in Kansas without a soul in sight and used that to determine that there's no kind of overpopulation problem?

Well, that too. But no, I've also proven the things that I just said I did: the fact that I can find these statistics, and that you appear not to believe them, shows me that you are being selective about which statistics you use and which ones you do not. Either that, or your fears about overpopulation are based on a guess. This isn't my opinion: one of these things has to be true.

That said, if you're content with an ultimate counterargument of "you can't PROVE it won't happen!" then I'll gladly accept that conclusion and let it speak for itself.

I think it's more fascinating that you assume my disagreement is based on a "need," rather than a genuine disagreement. Though if you want to play that: why do you seemingly need to believe there is a problem?

The answer, of course, is that asking why someone is "obsessed" or "needs" to believe something are transparent rhetorical ploys to shift the focus of attention away from the arguments themselves. Speculating as to people's deepest motives is a futile task, and wouldn't tell us anything about the truth or falsity of their positions, anyway.

I don't think overpopulation is a problem because the data don't support that conclusion, and because the fears, when explained, seemed to be based on a fundamental misunderstanding of human nature. And because they've never been right before. Now, if you prefer to believe that I hold this position out of some unnamed psychological necessity, suit yourself. But it doesn't have anything to do with anything. Either birth rates are down, or not, and whether or not my favorite Uncle was killed by a weighty copy of An Essay on the Principle of Population in a freak library accident has no bearing on the question.

I haven't bothered to read the last few pages so I can't claim to know what's going on in this wacky thread lately but I see people arguing about overpopulation.

What that has to do with the abortion issue, I have no idea. It would be a terrible argument to make a pro-choice argument contingent upon overpopulation. It would be like arguing in favor of lesser punishment for homicide in densely populated cities..... if you think that would be a good idea, then you and I are not in the same reality.

Anyways, that aside, I don't think there is a global overpopulation problem in the first place. In areas, yes. But I think the real problem is poor resource management.

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If the argument for overpopulation is in accordance to the earth's resources, then it's Western fetuses that should be aborted, not 3rd world ones. It depends on what standard of living we're talking about/is expected.

Nuh uhhh!

But you aren't arguing for abortion, are you?

Anyway, my point being that Western children are going to use far more of the earth's resources than 3rd world ones. Therefore, if it's overpopulation versus resources, then the 'choice' is obvious.

I don't have any children, therefore I've already done far more 'for the planet' than anyone who's had children. There's nothing I could do which would come close to being 'as bad' for the enviroment as having a child.

The concept of 'pro-choice' makes no real sense in my country. Here, a woman chooses to have an abortion or not at her own discretion. Yoda's long tortuous & convoluted retort, to my suggestion that in an overpopulated world, abortion, along with education about contraception & the possibility of women to have cultural equality, would be a way of controlling population, has now morphed into his need to convince me the world, at seven billion & counting, is not only not overpopulated, but not heading into problems because of it. I don't believe him.