is miscarriage immoral?

[Rosnet]

if we are to assume that abortion is immoral, then is it also immoral to become pregnant when miscarriage is a near certainty?

I think it depends on what premises you base the ethic that abortion is immoral.

For example, if it is based on the tenet "Leave it to Nature", then abortion is immoral, because you're interfering what is happening naturally, but trying to conceive when you're likely to have a miscarriage is not immoral - "If that is what Nature wills, then so be it" - you're only trying, since you're not completely sure, there's a chance, however small it be, that you will conceive.

That's only an example.

So you should probably find out what your friend's premises. If it's religious, then it might even be immoral to not try to conceive, depending on what his religion says about the subject. In fact, if he is religious, then this question is probably easily answered - all you have to do is see what the religious text has to say about it. Whatever it says would be, or ought to be, his moral principle.

 

[Rosnet]

that's entirely cynical of you.
So many great people with health problems have done amazing things on this planet. So you agree with an abortion but somehow it's not okay to put risk into the beauty of life?

That's not the point. If it's certain that the child will have crippling health defects ("defective heart genes", for example), then why would you want to let it be born and see it suffer? I fail to see how that is "the beauty of life".

"So many great people with health problems have done amazing things on this planet". Yes, but that doesn't mean their suffering was a good thing. It is the great things that they did that show the "beauty of life". Not the suffering they endured.

Or are you going to argue that the beauty is that they overcame their suffering and went on to do great things? Okay, agreed, but that still doesn't make their suffering a desirable thing. Would you deliberately refrain from not helping a suffering person just because you think because it will be beautiful to see them overcome their pain and do great things? If you knew a way to cure Helen Keller's blindess (and if she were alive), would you deliberately hide it, so as to enjoy the "beauty of life" made apparent by her achievements?

Do you call this "putting risk into the beauty of life" and therefore approve of it? Okay, if your seven year old really badly wanted to try jumping from the second floor to "fly like Superman", would you let him? There's a chance (very slight, true, but still a chance) that he'll survive with no great problems. If you wouldn't let him do that, then you're not okay with "putting risk into the beauty of life".

 

[Nasor]

It's like murder in the 2nd degree. It may not have been your intent to kill anyone, but your behavior was risky enough to increase the chances of someone's death. Even if you didn't kill someone on purpose, your actions directly caused their death so it's still considered murder. (Got to love jury duty). Abortion would be murder in the 1st degree. A woman who gets pregnant knowing that the chance of miscarrying is very high, has committed malice of forethought (doing something knowing that her actions could very well result in one's death, like shooting through random windows in a building) and her actions were premeditated.

And who is the victim of this "malice of forethought"? The not-yet-existing fetus? I suspect that if we could somehow ask it what it wanted (which would be tricky since it doesn't actually exist yet), it would tell us that it would rather at least have some chance of existing than the certainty of never existing at all.
At least with a pregnancy that's likely to miscarry there is some small, non-zero chance that it will get to exist.

 

[Nasor]

On a side note, it's estimated that about half of all pregnancies in humans spontaneously miscarry, usually before the woman ever even knows she's pregnant. So if you want to go with the whole "every fetus is a person with a soul" thing that so many christians seem to be into, it would appear that about half of the souls in existence never get to be born, or even to exist in the physical world for more than a day or so.

 

[CutsieMarie89]

And who is the victim of this "malice of forethought"? The not-yet-existing fetus? I suspect that if we could somehow ask it what it wanted (which would be tricky since it doesn't actually exist yet), it would tell us that it would rather at least have some chance of existing than the certainty of never existing at all.
At least with a pregnancy that's likely to miscarry there is some small, non-zero chance that it will get to exist.

Yes the fetus. It would already have existed. No crime is committed until the fetus dies. If it does die and you knew what you were doing would most likely kill it (as in my personal case) then I think the blame could very easily rest with you. If your kid is allergic to peanuts and eating them could kill them yet you fed them peanuts anyway because you like them then if your child dies shouldn't you be charged with something?

 

[Nasor]

Yes the fetus. It would already have existed. No crime is committed until the fetus dies. If it does die and you knew what you were doing would most likely kill it (as in my personal case) then I think the blame could very easily rest with you.

Yes, if you choose to get pregnant when you know that you will probably miscarry then you are knowingly doing something that will likely result in the death of a fetus. But the fetus will never have any chance to exist at all unless you get pregnant. If you knew that you would probably miscarry should you become pregnant and could somehow ask the not-yet-existing fetus its opinion on the matter, it would probably tell you to give it a shot so that it could at least have some chance of existing, however small.

If your kid is allergic to peanuts and eating them could kill them yet you fed them peanuts anyway because you like them then if your child dies shouldn't you be charged with something?

A better analogy would be feeding you allergic kid peanuts because he was dying of some disease for which peanuts where the only cure.

And as I already pointed out, about half of all pregnancies end in very early miscarriages anyway. So if you want to argue that anyone who does something that will likely result in the death of an embryo is morally culpable, then anyone who tries to get pregnant is morally culpable, because there's always about a 50% chance that the embryo will die in the first few days anyway.

 

[swarm]

if we are to assume that abortion is immoral, then is it also immoral to become pregnant when miscarriage is a near certainty?

The vast majority of fertilized eggs never implant and are swept out of the womb and killed.

A large number of pregnancies abort in the first month. We had at least two out of 5 total known hits that miscarried. There were a couple more that may have been early miscarries. Basically if she has a late heavy period, it probably was a early miscarry.

So any time you are up at bat it is very likely that there is going to be some kind of mishap.

 

[Roman]

A miscarriage is immoral in the sense that a woman is failing to provide her husband with children. Good women are fertile. In fact, fertility is a blessing from God. So if a woman has a miscarriage, think of it as a punishment from God, for being immoral.

With this in mind, should it be any surprise that most women miscarry?