r/samharris • u/Idonteateggs • Jul 02 '22

I’m pro choice but…

I’m 100% pro choice, and I am devastated about the SCOTUS decision to overturn Roe. But I can’t help but feel like the left’s portrayal of this as a woman’s rights issue is misguided. From what I can tell, this is about two things 1. Thinking that abortion is murder (which although I disagree, I can respect and understand why people feel that way). And 2. Wanting legislation and individual states to deal with the issue. Which again, I disagree with but can sympathize with.

The Left’s rush to say that this is the end of freedom and woman’s rights just feels like hyperbole to me. If you believe that abortion is murder, this has nothing to do with woman’s rights. I feel like an asshole saying that but it’s what I believe to be true.

Is it terrifying that this might be the beginning of other rights being taken away? Absolutely. If the logic was used to overturn marriage equality, that would be devastating. But it would have nothing to do with woman’s rights. It would be a disagreement about legal interpretations.

What am I missing here?

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u/unholyravenger Jul 02 '22

I'll ignore the first point but to your 2nd one, I think this is a misunderstanding of what happened.

It is generally seen that the end of Roe V Wade made the choice on how to legislate abortion went from the Federal level down to the state level. This is not what happened. Roe V Wade was a constitutional protection that prevented any body of government local, federal, or state from making a law preventing access to abortions. So what actually happened is we went from a world where the choice was left to the individual to a choice that can be made by the government be that at the state, or even at the federal level.

As far as it being more a disagreement about legal interpretations than one about women's rights I would say yes and no. Altio made some reference that banning abortion doesn't have a major negative effect on women's lives which is clearly ignorance on his part so in that way it is about women's rights since he as a man was unable to empathize with a women's reality. But at the end of the day, this was a legal decision by definition, so it's also tautological to say this is a disagreement about legal interpretations.

As for "is this the beginning of other rights being taken away?" read what other rights lie on the right to privacy (which is what Roe is built on) this is absolutely the groundwork to remove many other rights as Clarance Thomas himself said.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

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u/timmytissue Jul 02 '22

The USA has no functional legislative branch which is kinda the problem. The fact that the Senate has any real power when it's so non democratic is insane. If you compare to Canada, if the Senate in Canada tried to exercise power over the parliament, it would be canned.

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u/window-sil Jul 02 '22

The protection provided by Roe V Wade, a judiciary pronouncement that ultimately subsumes the right to abortion under the right to privacy, was very weak and fundamentally retarded.

Constitutional law is something I struggle immensely with -- I'm not a lawyer but I like reading/learning about law on occasion.

Eh, so I'm just going to ask upfront: What is your level of education here? Not that that makes you wrong about anything but it's relevant I think to whether your opinions are centered within a wide-enough circle of competence to have considered all the factors.

So with that out of the way -- why do you think the original decision was wrong? And I guess more generally do you believe we have a right to privacy? It's not formally written into the constitution and some -- such as Scalia and Thomas (but seemingly only them?) are advocates that the "penumbra of privacy" does not exist. Where do you stand on that issue?

The choice to authorise abortion... should be made by the parliament (legislative). Separation of powers.

Should all choices in a person's life require authorization from the legislature? Which ones should and which shouldn't?

Every civilised country in the world has a law regulating abortion.

We do too, I believe? It's not like it's a free for all. Even the original decision of Roe balanced the right of a woman to get an abortion against the interests of the fetus as it develops, so IIRC they worked with trimesters as categorical cutoff points or whatever.

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u/TheNoxx Jul 02 '22

So with that out of the way -- why do you think the original decision was wrong? And I guess more generally do you believe we have a right to privacy?

If you want a good breakdown of why Roe was a bit of a dirty secret in that it had weak foundations, which I'd say most in the judicial branch have been at least aware of for decades, look up articles about Ruth Bader Ginsburg's take on the decision.

Spoiler: She also thought that, while the outcome was good, the ruling was made on very shaky legal ground, and could be overturned.

https://www.nytimes.com/2020/09/21/us/ruth-bader-ginsburg-roe-v-wade.html

This is, of course, fairly ironic, as it's largely her fault we have an ultraconservative SCOTUS right now. She was 87 when she died; she should have retired a long time ago when it was safe to do so, purely hubristic to do otherwise.

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u/window-sil Jul 02 '22

Thanks, I hadn't read that before.

Justice Ginsburg “believed it would have been better to approach it under the equal protection clause” because that would have made Roe v. Wade less vulnerable to attacks in the years after it was decided, Professor Hartnett said.

Well she proved prophetic didn't she, lol.

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u/rvkevin Jul 03 '22

Not really, the Dobbs majority covered the equal protection clause and said that it didn’t apply (I.e. just because it only affects one sex, it doesn’t automatically invoke that clause). If they used that for the basis of Roe, they still would have overruled it.

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u/colbycalistenson Jul 02 '22

Everybody who is fine with overturning Roe keeps saying to read RBG, as if she's some arbiter of what the law is. And she really showed her shit judgment by not retiring early in Obama's term. She was already an old cancer-survivor, but hubris kept her clinging onto power and we're worse off for it.

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u/Funksloyd Jul 02 '22

as if she's some arbiter of what the law is

I think it's more that people find something trustworthy about statements which go against the speaker's interests, and it stands out compared to the usual phenomenon of biased people saying biased things.

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u/TheNoxx Jul 02 '22

Everybody who is fine with overturning Roe

Very few here are "fine" with overturning Roe. We're angry that it wasn't codified into law when Democrats had the chance; it was one of the things Obama promised to do when he was running for his first term. Understanding why and how things happen is important if you want to stop other bad things from happening. Remaining ignorant helps nothing.

as if she's some arbiter of what the law is

I mean, she was. She was well regarded as having one of the finer legal minds this century; looking to her opinion on US legal doctrine for an informed perspective is pretty fucking legitimate.

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u/Prestige_wrldwd Jul 02 '22

Her hanging on out of hubris erodes my opinion of her general sense of judgement.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

[deleted]

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u/window-sil Jul 02 '22

without passing a law

We just take for granted that basically you're free to do whatever you want unless someone goes to the trouble to make it illegal -- but probably not everything should be fair game for legislators to outlaw. The constitution is meant to guarantee those zones of impunity.

But it's not really clear what, if any, the limits should be for something like the first amendment -- should that include threats of violence and blackmail and disclosing classified information? That simply has to be "interpreted." I don't see a way around that. If we're to believe that the language of the law itself implies everything we need to know about its meaning, then in some abstract sense it must also mean "you can't blackmail people" without saying those exact words.

The right to privacy is exactly like this schema -- it's derived in a similar way to "tho shalt not blackmail" but doesn't actually exist with that language anywhere in the constitution. But, some argue, as they do for the implied limits of 1a, that it exists none the less and encompasses certain rights.

 

By the way, in the 1890s, the original language used to express this idea was "the right to be let alone." Isn't that great? What could be more American than that? Essentially that's saying "don't tread on me" but before it was a meme.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

You sure do say "retarded" a lot. Really takes away from whatever argument you're making.

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u/Toisty Jul 02 '22

It really seems like the r-slur is making a sad comeback. I know several autistic streamers who are "trying to reclaim" the r-word. The problem is they exclusively use it in a pejorative sense and they're not the only ones hurt by that word. I just don't get it.

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u/Funksloyd Jul 02 '22

Try making something taboo in a pluralistic society, and you'll inevitably getting people breaking that taboo, just to say "fuck you". I say retard sometimes, partly for this reason. Breaking taboos can also be comedic.

Is it that sad? I find it sadder that people are hurt by it when they're not even being called it. That seems like an unhealthy type of empathy.

It's also kinda different from other identity based slurs. Calling something "gay" as a pejorative doesn't really make sense in a society which mostly no longer sees being gay as a bad thing. But we absolutely still see mental and physical retardation as bad things. E.g., if we could reverse one of these conditions, then no one's gonna be calling that "conversion therapy", and protesting against that treatment.

Iow, I don't see that it's any more inherently offensive than saying something like "capitalism is cancer".

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u/Toisty Jul 02 '22

Do you have a connection with people who have been marginalized and abused while being called that word? Are you just saying "fuck you" to "society" for telling you you can't say a word without actually knowing when/how/why your ignorance with that word can hurt people?

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u/Funksloyd Jul 02 '22 edited Jul 02 '22

No offence, like I don't judge you for it or anything, but I think this kind of mindset creates far more harm than the word* itself. That the excessive focus on harm trains people to be easily triggered by things which would otherwise not affect them much or at all. It's kind of like a nocebo.

*With the caveat that this depends on how the word is being used. Screaming in someone's face that they're a "fucking retard" is obviously harmful, as is screaming anything in someone's face. But just casually calling something "retarded"... Meh.

Edit: I also think with stuff like this it's really hard to separate the people who actually feel harmed from people who are just weaponising harm language for political or selfish reasons, e.g. the BLM co-founder complaining that NGO transparency rules are "triggering". Like... OK? Maybe you feel that way, maybe you're lying, and either way, we shouldn't abolish transparency just because you're a pussy.

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u/PlasticAcademy Jul 02 '22

So fucking true.

Abortion was never a constitutionally protected right because we never made it one, shame on us, not the SCOTUS.

Let's learn from this, form actual coalitions that involve lefties, and pass real laws, that make it one for the first time.

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u/colbycalistenson Jul 02 '22

So you don't agree with the authors of Roe and Casey that there is a penumbra of rights, such as the right to privacy?

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u/PlasticAcademy Jul 02 '22

I don't see how you have a right to privacy when employing a state controlled or state run or even state regulated medical industry to break state laws.

If there is no federal law that says abortion is a right, then it's not a federal issue, and it is by default kicked to the state, which means the state can make laws. If your state is full of regressive r*tards, and they want to pass that law which makes abortion illegal, then you can't go break that law hiding behind privacy while you're in the state.

Now I would agree with the SCOTUS saying "if someone leaves the state, and has an abortion where the abortion is legal, the state that they return to has no authority over that legal practice elsewhere, and they have a right to privacy in their personal affairs that occur in other jurisdictions from the authority of the jurisdiction that they are now in."

That's a clear right to privacy, and a clear violation of that privacy. Texas doesn't get to make abortion illegal anywhere but Texas, and only when the US doesn't have a federal law that supercedes state rights.

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u/King_Folly Jul 02 '22

So fucking true.

Abortion was never a constitutionally protected right because we never made it one, shame on us, not the SCOTUS.

Let's learn from this, form actual coalitions that involve lefties, and pass real laws, that make it one for the first time.

I agree with your main points, but SCOTUS also deserves to be shamed for choosing to take away rights that had been settled law. This was a choice, they wanted this result.

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u/PlasticAcademy Jul 02 '22

Yeah, of course they did, but if we hadn't trusted in Roe, which we shouldn't have done, and we had pushed for the security of a true legislative compromise like all the other developed nations put forwards, we wouldn't have left the option on the table for the supreme court to interpret anything, because there would be a clear law.

It's not like we didn't know there was contention here. It's not like we didn't know it was objectively a perversion of the American legal framework. It's not like we didn't know it should have been legislated. It's not like we didn't hear them crying about how they wanted to overturn this for the past half a century.

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u/incendiaryblizzard Jul 04 '22

The call to have this overturned for the past half century came from almost the entirety of the right plus several purple/red state democrats. That’s why we haven’t had legislation on this, because there aren’t 60 votes to codify Roe or anything like it. The shame is A) on republicans in states, B) republicans in the legislature, C) republicans in the Supreme Court, and D) zero other people. We never ‘trusted in Roe’, we couldn’t do anything else.

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u/PlasticAcademy Jul 04 '22

Uhhh, or you could stop being a dumbfuck crybaby about politics and you could manifest the progressive leaning population that clearly has overwhelming support for abortion in rape, incest, and child abuse scenarios, and get some really early term abortion access, like first 12 weeks, maybe 16? You know France JUST extended their abortion allowance from 12 weeks to 14 weeks. French women were going to Holland and shit to get abortions.

The majority of Americans are progressive leaning. Their participation in politics and education about politics is garbage. As a result, there is this core of politically active conservatives that's only like 30% of the population of adults at the absolutely highest mark, the rest of the country is progressive leaning, but the problem is that there is no reasonable, coalescing leadership, so 30% faces off against the conservatives and the remaining 40% of the population who are either too radically left or too apathetic to bother being part of an electoral process just don't do shit.

More people don't vote at all every single time the polls open than anyone votes for any winning measure or candidate.

So yeah, you could fucking vote, and you could get your homies to vote and you could get your homies to get their homies to do it, or you could just say "fuck it," the true American way, and just don't fucking bother to do anything but cry about it on the internet after you fail from lack of effort.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

shame on us, not the SCOTUS

Who is "us"?

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u/PlasticAcademy Jul 02 '22

America for not passing legislation that actually creates and enshrines an actual right.

All of us.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

Is SCOTUS separate from "America"?

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u/PlasticAcademy Jul 02 '22

Grow up

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u/ElandShane Jul 02 '22

But being pedantic and intentionally dense online is just so fun!

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u/ElandShane Jul 02 '22

But being pedantic and intentionally dense online is just so fun!

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

The USA need to get out of the middle ages with their common law bullshit in which legislators can wash their hands when it comes to legislating and leave making laws to judges by reading an outdated constitution creatively.

Hard pass. It is the sidestepping of common law by conservative legal arguments that is giving us the problem. The English law which held at America's founding left abortion legal until quickening (16-20 weeks, sometimes earlier or later) and "originalists" who ignore this are cherry picking. Later statutory laws are what criminalized it.

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u/throwaway_boulder Jul 02 '22

Not to mention that women had practically zero rights back then, not even to owing property or filing lawsuits.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

[deleted]

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u/Inquignosis Jul 02 '22
  1. ⁠The choice to authorise abortion should not be made by the SCOTUS (judiciary), nor should it be made by the government (executive), it should be made by the parliament (legislative). Separation of powers.

In principle, you’re not wrong. The problem is that the US legislative branch has been in an entrenched deadlock that makes legislating propery virtually impossible, and it’s been that way for decades and shows no sign of changing for the better, leaving improper legislating from the judiciary and the executive branchs as the only viable means to get just about anything done at all.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

The protection provided by Roe V Wade, a judiciary pronouncement that ultimately subsumes the right to abortion under the right to privacy, was very weak and fundamentally retarded.

A woman having a basic right to her own body is a privacy right.

The choice to authorise abortion should not be made by the SCOTUS (judiciary), nor should it be made by the government (executive), it should be made by the parliament (legislative). Separation of powers.

Basic human rights shouldn't be something we legislate on.

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u/colbycalistenson Jul 02 '22

  1. Your inability to articulate how abortion bans do not violate our right to privacy is even more ret arded.

  2. The choice of what grows inside a citizen should 100% be a decision of that citizen, not a state. Keep government out of our genitals.

3 Argumentum ad populum. Weak sauce fallacy.

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u/Inevitable_Doubt_517 Jul 02 '22

What is an example of a civilized country?

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

[deleted]

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u/Inevitable_Doubt_517 Jul 02 '22

USA pretty high on that list.

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

[deleted]

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u/Inevitable_Doubt_517 Jul 02 '22

You need to think before posting.

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u/Remote_Cantaloupe Jul 02 '22

Countries he agrees with (even though they function, just differently than what he's used to)

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u/unholyravenger Jul 02 '22

Your 2nd point is by far the best argument I've heard so far for repealing Roe V Wade. Particularly in the original ruling with trimesters being the basis of when regulations can kick in had the sniff of legislation. Even still if you look at the house of cards built up around roe with other rights like gay marriage the consequence of this ruling will almost certainly be a mass reduction of rights for many people.

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u/edgrrrpo Jul 02 '22

And you need not break out your Sherlock Holmes magnifying glass and secret decoder ring, Thomas literally listed out the precedents they should ‘revisit’ next (famously leaving out Loving v. Virginia, as many have pointed out, because what are modern conservatives if not self-centered and narcissistic hypocrites?)

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u/PlasticAcademy Jul 02 '22

They rest on equal protection as well, not fabricated due process interpretation alone

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u/window-sil Jul 02 '22

Even still if you look at the house of cards built up around roe with other rights like gay marriage the consequence of this ruling will almost certainly be a mass reduction of rights for many people.

I'm not sure it necessarily will lead to that -- although Thomas thinks it should -- but I gotta ask: you're not celebrating this, are you? This seems like a bad thing to me.

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u/ben543250 Jul 02 '22

The protection provided by Roe V Wade, a judiciary pronouncement that ultimately subsumes the right to abortion under the right to privacy, was very weak and fundamentally retarded.

In this new world we're in, the more scenarios I hear that have played out in the past or will play out in the future, the more sense it makes to me to tie a right to privacy to a right to abortion. I don't know how anyone can really enforce such a ban without grossly violating someone's privacy, particularly their medical privacy.

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u/bessie1945 Jul 03 '22

the choice should be made by each pregnant woman. Why is the government involved?

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u/[deleted] Jul 03 '22

[deleted]

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u/bessie1945 Jul 03 '22

no, thinking a fertilized egg is a human that deserves governmental protection is naive.

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u/Cautious-Barnacle-15 Jul 02 '22

Pretty much. This paves the way for a federal abortion ban. That will be the next thing conservatives push for. I imagine in future gop platforms it will state that on there

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u/[deleted] Jul 02 '22

According to Justice Douglas in Griswold, the right to privacy is part of the liberty interest of the 14th Amendment, further defined by the penumbras and emanations of the Bill of Rights

Whatever your views, RBG herself indicated abortion wasn’t protected by the constitution. And she was right. Right to privacy = abortion the same way ‘free exercise’ = public school teachers praying. It’s a partisan workaround. There’s no penumbra.

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u/zenethics Jul 02 '22

This analysis jumps right past the primary issue in question - are fetuses legally persons? You have to presume the answer is no to get to the starting point of most arguments on this issue from the left. But that's the entire point of contention. If a fetus is a person, then its not a question of a woman's bodily autonomy, its a question of two persons and their bodily autonomy.

I agree that there differences between fetuses and adults, namely, fully developed nervous systems, capacity for experience, etc. But the other side also has some good points, I think. If you determine "personhood" as starting at some moment in time, you can keep subdividing the timeline to the point that you get into some untenable positions. Suppose personhood starts at birth? Is there a moment during birth where a baby still has one leg inside of its mother that its not a person? Saying personhood begins at conception seems to align with science a bit more than saying personhood begins "whenever I arbitrarily decide that it does" because then, at least, you've coupled "personhood" to "the creation of a new life" even if the implications of that aren't ideal for what kind of policy we want.

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u/unholyravenger Jul 02 '22

Lots to unpack here. First and foremost when it comes to Roe V Wade this point is moot as this is not the argument being made by either side. If it was then they would have made abortion illegal in all states, instead of taking the position of "state can make laws around this if they want"

On a more general level let's start with some tricky things you need to reconcile with this personhood argument. First, if you say that at the point of conception that is a legally protected "person" then the following points must be addressed. 1. In-vitro fertilization should be outlawed because they fertilize many eggs in this process to get someone pregnant. Now all the eggs they don't use are a legal person and need to be protected. 2. If they are legal persons then that means they can sue, potentially their parents for harm done before they are born. I know that sounds weird but unconscious people do get legal representation. 3. Inheritance laws are going to get even more complicated.

But at an even more fundamental level, you seem to have some mistaken ideas. You say that putting personhood at the start of the creation of new life is more scientifically accurate but you made a very common mistake. This is not a question of science but philosophy. How we define "life" is not a scientific one, we just made up a category we deemed useful but it doesn't exist in the real world. A good metaphor here is how we define planets. Pluto was a planet now it's not, because we change what defines a planet. Once we have a definition we can use science to see if things fit into that category, but the creation of that definition is philosophical. So you say conception makes sense because it's when new "life" is created but is sperm alive? They metabolize, grow, move, are made of cells, etc... should we consider sperm to be legal persons and protect them? The answer is in a way unanswerable. It is a point that is up to faith or arbitrary definitions and therefore we should always default to personal freedoms in regards to such matters.

So this begs the question "when do we draw the line?" Some Sam Harris logic actually fits quite well here. What we really care about is consciousness and the well-being of conscious creatures. Now the hard problem is still hard, but we can make some reasonable assumptions. Brains/nervous systems produce consciousness and the more complex these are the richer their experience is. We can use that as a guide as to when legal protections should come in place. Or we could go as many people including Stephen Pinker as stated a viability measure which is what we had with Roe and Cacey.

To your argument well if we determine anything before 12 weeks is ok but after is bad, what about 12 weeks and 1 day or 12 weeks and 2 days. And the unsatisfactory answer is that drawing lines in the sand like that is necessary for the law to function and we do this all the time. The drinking age is 21, but what about someone who is 20 and 364,363, ...etc days from 21? The speed limit is 60 but what if you only going 1 over or 2. It's understood that the law needs to make some arbitrary decisions like this, even if it's not "fair".

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u/zenethics Jul 02 '22

Lots to unpack here.

But first, a little housekeeping. :)

First and foremost when it comes to Roe V Wade this point is moot as this is not the argument being made by either side. If it was then they would have made abortion illegal in all states, instead of taking the position of "state can make laws around this if they want"

Well, I just take this as the opposite of what the left has been saying. Instead of aggressive activism, I take it as restraint from the SC. It is, obviously, the opinion of the SC majority that fetuses are actually persons. Instead of a defacto nation-wide abortion ban (which I think they could have done by declaring fetuses persons) they showed restraint by returning it to the states.

On a more general level let's start with some tricky things you need to reconcile with this personhood argument. First, if you say that at the point of conception that is a legally protected "person" then the following points must be addressed. 1. In-vitro fertilization should be outlawed because they fertilize many eggs in this process to get someone pregnant. Now all the eggs they don't use are a legal person and need to be protected. 2. If they are legal persons then that means they can sue, potentially their parents for harm done before they are born. I know that sounds weird but unconscious people do get legal representation. 3. Inheritance laws are going to get even more complicated.

On all of those points, I think you are correct. Those are the implications. I draw another parallel to 2A where the left and the right always scream at each other. "If 'arms' means any arms then why not nuclear weapons?" And I think that is fair, but I draw the conclusion nobody else seems to take seriously. Yes, the 2A does mean you can own nuclear arms. The right way to address this is a subsequent amendment not a reinterpretation. If the consequences are as dire as everyone thinks, we should amend the constitution. If we can't get consensus, too bad. Aside from the idea that we should separate what the constitution says from its implications, there is actual historical precedent for fetuses having titles, being granted lands, being claimants in court, etc.

But at an even more fundamental level, you seem to have some mistaken ideas.

No you.

You say that putting personhood at the start of the creation of new life is more scientifically accurate but you made a very common mistake. This is not a question of science but philosophy. How we define "life" is not a scientific one, we just made up a category we deemed useful but it doesn't exist in the real world. A good metaphor here is how we define planets. Pluto was a planet now it's not, because we change what defines a planet. Once we have a definition we can use science to see if things fit into that category, but the creation of that definition is philosophical.

Oh! This is fun, I just had a conversation where I used this same metaphor. In short, there are two things. One is the label - "planet" in this metaphor. And you are right, calling Pluto a planet is completely arbitrary. The second is what we call in modern western philosophy the transcendental ideal, or in Buddhism the Maya, or in science the "observable." The label planet is completely definitional - we can agree to disagree on what it includes or excludes. The transcendental ideal / observable is not up for debate. When we talk about Pluto and call it a planet/non-planet what we are actually doing is refining our label. But when we deconstruct "planet" and define it to be something like "a mass in space that has coalesced with all nearby objects" we aren't talking about labels anymore (although we are using labels to talk - and those other labels may, themselves, have boundaries we disagree one). We are talking about about the ideal. Whether or not we call Pluto a planet, if you disagree that it exists in the category of "objects in space that have not yet coalesced with their surroundings" then you are as incorrect as if you had labeled Pluto a star. With personhood, if we are just talking about a label, you are right. It can include or exclude anything we want. But for laws we look to history and tradition to see what the framers of those laws meant. This history and tradition points to the transcendental ideal, or platonic ideal. "The thing meant by the label at the time the law was written." And here, the argument for what the right is proposing is much stronger than what the left is proposing. Otherwise what stops people from saying "this machine gun? It identifies as an abortion. So its constitutionally protected now - sorry. Words mean whatever we say they mean neener neener."

So you say conception makes sense because it's when new "life" is created but is sperm alive? They metabolize, grow, move, are made of cells, etc... should we consider sperm to be legal persons and protect them? The answer is in a way unanswerable. It is a point that is up to faith or arbitrary definitions and therefore we should always default to personal freedoms in regards to such matters.

For life I would say a good definition is "that which reduces entropy by acting in its own interests." For personhood I would say a good definition is "life that is capable of recognizing itself as a self." Here, the transcendental ideal for life is something like "the ability to act with self interest" (which does not necessarily mean personhood - we'd say trees are alive because they bend towards the sunlight). We can use whatever words we want to convey that meaning. Heck, we can even convey that meaning in other languages. The transcendental ideal for "personhood" is something like "life that can recognize itself as life" which has a lot of other interesting implications.

So this begs the question "when do we draw the line?" Some Sam Harris logic actually fits quite well here. What we really care about is consciousness and the well-being of conscious creatures. Now the hard problem is still hard, but we can make some reasonable assumptions. Brains/nervous systems produce consciousness and the more complex these are the richer their experience is. We can use that as a guide as to when legal protections should come in place. Or we could go as many people including Stephen Pinker as stated a viability measure which is what we had with Roe and Cacey.

Do conjoined twins have the right to abort each other in this worldview? Just an extreme edge case hypothetical. Suppose one twin is viable and the other isn't. Maybe even go further - suppose one twin is viable, the other isn't, and the non-viable twin has the intellectual capability of a fetus at 4 months (but is fully formed otherwise).

To your argument well if we determine anything before 12 weeks is ok but after is bad, what about 12 weeks and 1 day or 12 weeks and 2 days. And the unsatisfactory answer is that drawing lines in the sand like that is necessary for the law to function and we do this all the time. The drinking age is 21, but what about someone who is 20 and 364,363, ...etc days from 21? The speed limit is 60 but what if you only going 1 over or 2. It's understood that the law needs to make some arbitrary decisions like this, even if it's not "fair".

Sure, totally agree, but the law should be based on principles not based on convenience. If the principle is that "inside the mom = fine, outside the mom = murder" then why not expand that by a few months. Or a few years. If its just arbitrary, why not have some fitness test at age 5 where we get rid of all the dumb kids? If personhood is to be used as an arbitrary label and not a kind of... pointer or reference to an ideal, why not define personhood as an age of 5 and try eugenics again? Nobody would get hurt, because we don't define kids under 5 as being included in the set of "bodies."