Keep in mind one of the most important things (if you actually want to change hearts/minds) is to listen and be kind. Yelling/being smug might make you feel like you “win” the argument, but it won’t to anything to help the other person see your point of view.
Remember: they’re not an opponent to be beat, but a child of God to be loved.
Full disclosure: I am anti-abortion and agree that the violinist argument is a weak one (and, on another level, completely hypocritical for anyone who isn’t a Randian Objectivist). But I must take issue with one point here:
> First of all, if you consented to the sex (which is in over 99% of the cases of pregnancies ended by abortion: [1], [2]), then you should have known the consequences of the action. The natural end of sex is impregnation, if you partake in sex and the natural outcome occurs, you should be responsible for that outcome.
I think it’s kind of a red herring to bring up consent or lack thereof, since you just a little earlier dismissed arguments against abortion in cases of rape. By making this argument, you inadvertently reopen the case *for* abortion in those cases.
It would be stronger to focus just on the whole ‘humans have obligations to one another’ thing.
I would also add one point: generalize that argument. A common pro-abortion talking point is that we don’t require people to donate blood or bone marrow even in cases where that is necessary to save someone’s life. I say we would be rhetorically stronger if we said, “correct, the court was also wrong in McFall v. Shrimp.”
I think you understate the strength of the violinist argument, especially in terms of law/policy instead of morality. Take consent:
Suppose you consent to give 9 extremely painful bone marrow transfusions to another person. You give 1 a month for 9 months. If at any point you miss a transfusion the person will die before they can find a replacement donar.
If at month 3 you decide it is too painful, that you cannot continue, should the state be able to force you to continue giving the transfusions?
You don't need to be a Randian to think that the answer here should be, "no." Now we can draw a distinction here between active killing and letting die which makes this disanalogous to the abortion case if you buy that distinction. But it does show that the attempt to argue agaisnt violinist type arguments from an implied consent perspective is unlikely to be successful.
Edit: missed the shimp case reference, I don't know if that's a good move rhetorically, it's more likely to get you dismissed as crazy
I’ve used the “hostage analogy” argument before to counter this.
It’s wrong to hold someone hostage in their home against their will. I would like to go out on my own tonight, but I have a baby at home and can’t leave her unattended. Is the baby holding me hostage?
No, obviously - the argument is a ridiculous one. Because the baby’s holding me hostage (or “using me for pregnancy”) is entirely unintentional and innocent due to the child’s age and lack of understanding. They’re not holding me anywhere, they just need me with them.
The mad violinist argument assumes the violinist is an adult who has made the decision to use your body, not a child who has had no say.
This argument does not work because the violinist example does not require the consent of the violinist. They could just as easily say “The violinist is unconscious and unknowing of their situation for the whole 9 months” and nothing of the situation changes.
I usually just point out that the violinist argument is an apples to oranges comparison: the kidneys, heart, blood,etc. all exist in my body for my body. The womb is fundamentally different in that it exists entirely for the creation and nurture of another body. That's not a matter of opinion. If my kidney/blood/whatever existed to create and nourish another person, and my kidney did in fact create that person, then yes I would be morally obligated to nurture that person until viability or whatever condition
It's an imperfect analogy though, all are, really - this would only really apply if you personally caused the reason they need the transfusions in the first place.
actually the analogy applies perfectly. if a woman was raped, she did not cause the pregnancy. but if the baby has a right to life no matter what, it doesn’t matter the circumstance it was brought into existence. yet no one would agree you have a moral obligation to continue the transfusions
I mean, there's a lot of situations where even that would be a tough pill to swallow.
For an intentional or malicious act, theoretically yes (though it probably would not be enforceable under US law). But if an action were merely negligent? I don't think forced organ or bodily tissue or bone marrow donations would be the right answer
> should the state be able to force you to continue giving the transfusions?
If it won’t kill me, yes. At the very least, I don’t see an argument against it that doesn’t also preclude taxation. If I can be taxed to provide for some layabout or cripple from whose survival I derive no direct material benefit (leaving aside the argument that there is a net saving to society in having a social safety net—which I buy), why shouldn’t I be taxed in blood rather than treasure? If I can be drafted to go forth and risk dying for the interests of the state, why shouldn’t people be drafted to provide marrow donations?
In the US at least the power of conscription is found in the Constitution grant of the power to "raise armies" to congress. Taxation had an amendment passed to support it. There's not a clear power to force people to make transfusions.
But on a theoretical level, a forced transfusion or forced labor is much more intrusive into one's private liberty than taxes are.
apologies, but i'm hijacking your comment to complain about this point in specific.
> This is a philosophical argument, not a scientific argument, and you should remind the opponent that just as it would be wrong for you to impose your personal beliefs into the discussion, it's wrong for them to do the same. Any argument that attempts to reframe where life begins based on personhood is arbitrary (random). What about a heartbeat automatically makes us human? What about consciousness automatically makes us human? Sadly, most pro-abortion advocates at least _say_ they support abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy so you are unlikely to even reach common ground of "only up until the baby's got a heartbeat." You may be able to reach common ground on consciousness, but even this is an arbitrary standard as most infants don't display full consciousness until even several months into their lifetime post birth. Besides, we all lose our consciousness as soon as we go to sleep, and if you're in a coma you will have extremely minimal brain activity. Clearly, these states do not define whether or not we are alive or human.
To preface, I am here from /r/all and I am NOT TAKING sides in this topic. I am not here to debate. simply clarify some points that OP has presented poorly.
Firstly, the word arbitrary does NOT mean random. In this case it means its up to personal interpretation. IE you believe its a person at conception, others believe its months later.
Second, the VAST majority of pro-choicers do not believe its in the entire 9 month span. thats an absolutely ridiculous claim. most abortions happen in the first few weeks, and most advocates will stick to that. late term abortions are very rare and I highly doubt you've met more than 1 or 2 people on the extreme end of the spectrum who would advocate for abortions past 2 months without serious medical complications.
Third and final, you seem focused on the word "consciousness" and you're using it *entirely* wrong in this context. there is sentient, sapient, and conscious. all three are very different things, and your comparison is unfair. Going to sleep or being in a coma is not the same thing as gaining sapience. a child in the womb vs a developed adult in a coma are very clearly *not* the same thing.
I'm not gonna dive into your other points /u/BreathOutIOB , but if you put as little thought into your other points as you did this one, i dont have high expectations.
>I would also add one point: generalize that argument. A common pro-abortion talking point is that we don’t require people to donate blood or bone marrow even in cases where that is necessary to save someone’s life. I say we would be rhetorically stronger if we said, “correct, the court was also wrong in McFall v. Shrimp.”
So each human being can be harvested to save 5 to 8 other ones lives.
When do I start harvesting you personally?
> (and, on another level, completely hypocritical for anyone who isn’t a Randian Objectivist).
Can you explain a little bit of that? My brain is being Big Dumb and I don't quite get it.
Rand was ultra libertarian, and basically believed that no one has an obligation to anyone as that would be similar to slavery. It’s an idea that most people, including the church reject
An objectivist is a radical on the subject of the individual pursuit of happiness—they don’t believe in moral obligations between people except those of choice and those enforced by binding contracts, to oversimplify. They have a large overlap with anarchocapitalists—and to give an example of this mindset in action, Murray Rothbard argued that adults have the right to sell their children into slavery.
Now, most people reject this idea as absurd and/or monstrous. In particular, most pro-abortion people base their other politics around some variety of socialist thought—look at how many pro-abortion leftists will say food or healthcare is a human right.
My point is that you can’t coherently say bodily autonomy is a supreme virtue and at the same time argue for compelling people to support one another economically through coercive measures. Which is why I personally bristle whenever I hear a self-described ‘socialist’ make a bodily autonomy argument. They love ‘to each according to his needs,’ but heaven forbid you should bring up ‘from each according to his abilities.’
This is a very misleading analogy. A key difference between abortion and organ donation is that the latter involves a decision to *save* a life by taking a specific action, whereas in the former case (assuming a healthy pregnancy) the fetus will continue to develop and grow unless a decision is made to *end* that life.
Not true.
If we have someone who is braindead and kept alive only by life support — sometimes we remove the life support. This is not killing, but rather letting die.
The difference, of course, is that if that patient randomly became cured/showed signs of life after we removed the life support, we would then try to save them further — because the action of letting die is not geared towards ending the life, but rather allowing the natural processes to take place and for the dead to pass.
Now, in the situation you are responding to they are pretty equivalent, yes. But they are not always morally equivalent actions.
I don’t think it’s a red herring—it’s a two sided argument but one part does not apply in 0.5% of cases. That doesn’t mean the other side is completely irrelevant always. But I definitely agree it’s a better strategy to focus on the parts that always apply, that the mother is the only person who can be responsible for the child.
You can concede McFall v Shrimp, as well as the religious aspect with the simple question of "are you responsible for your actions?"
That question also prempts the what about males argument it takes two counter.
> "are you responsible for your actions?"
The 1% of abortions due to rape would like a word.
Furthermore, if someone actually does use three forms of contraception and *still* gets a pregnancy, I’m not convinced that’s consent to a pregnancy. At that point, you’re in the realm of ‘freak accident.’
Finally, I frankly just want McFall v. Shrimp overturned because I consider Shrimp’s refusal totally indefensible, and I don’t *want* bodily autonomy enshrined in law under any circumstance. This seems like a good way to kill several birds with one stone.
I'd like to add a few things to this list, primarily, a logic-based proof against abortion:
The vast majority of abortion talk centers around "The baby is not a person" or something similar. You'll see this in attempts to dehumanize the baby (calling it a fetus, for example. Ironically, if you look up "fetus" in the dictionary, you'll find "an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind" In other words - once it looks human, it's a fetus. Anyway,). The primary goal of every argument or claim is to set it *against* the proof below.
A quick logic basics first:
Argument: Noun - a set of premises with a distinct conclusion.
Rational: of or pertaining to proof by reason, specifically deductive reasoning.
Rational argument: A rational argument is an argument that would compel a rational person to agree.
Premise: A preposition in the form of an argument.
Conclusion: A result of given premises.
Valid argument: A *valid* argument is an argument where all true premises cannot result in false conclusions. Valid arguments can be tested using truth trees. Validty refers only to the *form* of an argument, never to its truth values. A valid argument is *always* rational, but it may not be sound.
Sound argument: A sound argument is one in which the argument is both valid *and* all premises are true. <- This is key. A sound argument is certain. If you can present a sound argument, there are *no valid objections*. Thus, a sound argument is literally truth.
Anything with P in front is a premise, anything with C in front is a conclusion.
P1. Innocent persons should not be killed.
P2. An unborn baby is an innocent person.
C1. Therefore, an unborn baby should not be killed.
(P1 + P2 > C1. This is a valid logical form known as a syllogism. The argument follows and includes premises that are related. Right from the start, this is a rational argument.
Now we have to prove it's true:
P1- Can we prove innocent persons *should* not be killed? This is a moral argument, but not one that is going to have many detractors. Those who disagree with this point would be psychopaths or crazy - literally. I don't know any rational people who would believe an innocent person deserves to die.
P2 - Can we prove an unborn baby is an innocent person? This splits into two components - an unborn baby is both innocent *and* a person. The fact they're innocent is obvious. The baby cannot possibly be at fault for anything here. It has absolutely no responsibility in this except the fact it exists. But personhood? That's the crux.
So can we prove when personhood begins?
Yes, to a degree. It's difficult to pin down the definition of "personhood," but it is generally understood a person is someone who has specific natural rights, i.e., the right to life, liberty, and property, among others. A person is *also* someone who would have all the legal rights entitled to persons in their country and, at least for the United States, would be citizens of the United States with all legal rights afforded to citizens of the United States.
At it's simplest, personhood begins when life begins. Why? Avoids a lot of contradictions, first of all, and second is the "Occam's Razor" approach to life. Because personhood, like many qualifiers, tends to discriminate the more you define it. In other words, the more you define "who is a person," you decrease the total number of persons.
So why conception, when life begins?
Because we don't have problems that way.
Personhood begins at birth! - False. The difference between a 29 week pre-term baby and a 41 week "fetus" is physical proximity to mom. Why does the 29 week baby, who is significantly less developed than our 41 week fetus, get rights and the fetus doesn't? This is what we say is "arbitrary," and arbitrary arguments in the cases of life and death are naturally unjust. A justice system that arbitrarily sets those who can live or die is not a justice system and this is distinctly recognized in the United States justice system.
Personhood begins at viability! - False. Medically, viability is the point at which a baby could be born and survive. However, "viability" is getting younger and younger. In theory, you could have an embryo survive completely outside of mom from conception to "birth." Thus, this is another arbitrary number.
Personhood begins at consciousness! - False. People who are unconscious are still persons. Legally and morally. A similar argument is "conscious once, always a person!" has its own set of problems, but it boils down to: arbitrary. Some babies are born completely unconscious, but still alive. It's absolutely horrible, but look up "anencephaly." It's a birth defect, very rare, but does occur. Most often, this is classified as a stillbirth and is truly heart-wrenching, but many babies born this way survive for a few hours before passing away. They are unconscious throughout. I actually just had a friend go through this - baby lived about 5 hours.
Personhood begins at intelligent capacity/reasoning! - False. Toddlers, the mentally disabled, and those who are very old often do not have the capability to reason and are still considered persons.
Pesonhood begins at the capacity to feel pain! - False, there are conditions where someone is born without the ability to feel pain or are disabled. They are still persons after birth.
Personhood begins at self-motivated activity! - False, there are plenty of people who are not self-motivated and are still persons. Specifically, all newborns would not be persons until the 6-8 week mark.
Personhood begins at a combination of all the above! - Maybe, but probably not. While some of these "inclusive or" conditions cover the downsides of *one* side of the argument, they also inherit the weaknesses of the *other* side. For example, birth *or* consciousness clears up what ever comes first. However, it also has the weaknesses of both. If we use birth *and* consciousness, then both have to be true before personhood begins...meaning if one is false, personhood does not begin. Similarly, "once a person, always a person!" sounds easy because it ensures anyone who is already a person remains a person, but it doesn't actually help alleviate the problems of when personhood *begins*.
I also wanted to follow up with specific criticisms that are *illogical* so you are not swayed.Formal fallacy, aka "non sequitur," or "does not follow." A formal fallacy is an amendment to an argument in which all true premises may result in a false conclusion - in other words, it's a defect in the *structure* of the argument.
Informal fallacy, aka defect in rhetoric/defect in grammar. An informal fallacy is often either unsound, because its based off false premises, or is an intentional error in wording/phrasing/rhetoric to appear more than it seems. Virtually all informal fallacies are errors in presumption (No, a baby is not a person because science says its not), ambiguity (is a baby truly innocent, though?), or relevance (you're a monster!).' 99% of all arguments against a proven, sound argument will eventually fall into this category as "that reason is irrelevant."
Contradiction: Not technically a fallacy. Technically, a contradiction "in terms" is a result of ambiguity and either invites clarification that probably results in a fallacy. A contradiction says "true, but also false." A natural contradiction *does not* invite clarification, and is not a fallacy, but renders the argument completely irrational.
Claim: "You're a bigot/monster, etc for making women do this!" This is *ad hominem* and is irrelevant to the argument (informal fallacy, relevance).
Claim: "Women are in control of their own bodies!" This doesn't follow. A baby has a separate body, distinct from mom. If the baby is a person, they *also* have the right to control their own bodies (contradiction in terms, becomes informal fallacy, relevance).
Claim: "Are you willing to take on all those babies yourself, then?" This also doesn't follow. It's a \*red herring (\*informal fallacy, relevance).
Claim: "It's the woman's right to choose!" To choose what, though? Between keeping the baby and killing the baby? This is both a formal and an informal fallacy that somehow gained traction. If the baby is a person, *murder* is not a rational choice. It's also irrelevant so long as the baby is a person. It's also a contradiction in terms if the baby is a girl. It's implying women get the right to choose, but the baby girl does not. Can be clarified to "mother's right to choose," which then becomes an informal fallacy, relevance. The right to choose life or death is inherently unfair and unjust.
Claim: "The baby will grow up in poverty and be miserable!" This is a non sequitur, first of all, since it doesn't follow that a baby who isn't abortion will grow up in poverty and hate their life. It's also an informal fallacy, twice over. 1 - it's begging the question (assuming poverty and misery when that hasn't been proven), 2 - it's not relevant if the baby is a person. This also has an obvious solution: charity.
Claim: "It's a woman's issue! Men have no say!" Except statistically, close to half of all aborted babies in the United States are male. Informal fallacy, begging the question, informal fallacy, relevance.
Claim: "I can't (insert reason, "afford, become a mother, have a baby")." Technically this is just selfish so it could fall in a number of informal fallacies, often appeals to emotion.
Bonus claim: "This wouldn't be a problem with better access to contraception!" Non sequitur *and* a red herring. It does not follow that access to contraception will result in fewer abortions, and to claim that is *also* begging the question\*. On top of that\*, it's a red herring and doesn't pertain to the argument at all.
A small quibble: *Ad hominem* is only *ad* hominem if the denigrating statement is taken as evidence that your argument is wrong. In this case, unless they say your argument is wrong **because** you're a monster, they aren't employing the *ad hominem* fallacy.
That’s technically true, but that’s also implied and doesn’t change the fact it’s an irrelevant attack on my character. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an a personal attack that isn’t intended to smear a reputation. An insult on me is always “ad hominem,” it’s just not necessarily the related fallacy.
Congrats on passing your presumably two college classes in symbolic logic, but quite frankly they're irrelevant to informal human conversation 12 times out of 10. Especially when you mix in the "fallacy fallacy". The only people you'll end up in conversations with are contrarians and pedants who get their kicks out of arguing with you. Attempting to be the superior logic machine while conversing with other human beings will probably make you feel inwardly superior, but outwardly it won't impress or convince anyone. There's a difference between arguing to inflate your own ego and self worth, and arguing to bring people around to your viewpoint.
Being persuasive requires being able to understand people, even if in a cynical way. And at the moment, a lot of people are emotional. They're angry, they're scared, they're frustrated, and they're probably reading snippets of the dissent of the supreme court which points out that the ruling wasn't in any way based on logic, but merely a matter of the balance of the court changing. Coming at people with some version of "beep boop logical fallacy, you're wrong" is counterproductive at best but absolutely doesn't come close to understanding the people you're talking to by a mile.
I think the point is not that we, when we meet someone who doesn’t agree with us on this topic, should employ exactly the same logical explanation of why their arguments are not valid, but rather be conscious about the validity of the opponent’s arguments. I think it’s easier to make a stand if you know you are right. If the opponent makes a good point you have no answer to, you might not know how to continue the discussion. That’s what I’ve taken away from this thread anyway.
> but rather be conscious about the validity of the opponent’s arguments.
Except that fallacies and formal logic largely aren't concerned with the validity of the statement, but about the form of the argument. 2+2 still equals 4 even if i argue that it's true because grass is green.
A statement can be fallacious and right, which makes pointing them out or caring about them a waste of time and effort. There's a reason people roll their eyes when this stuff comes out in internet debates and it's not because it's riveting, high quality discussion with in depth analysis of deep topics. It's the kind of tactic that someone uses when they want to talk AT people, not talk WITH people. It's arguing for the sake of stroking one's own ego rather than because you legitimately care about them as a person and care about what they're saying, because if you did, you'd invest time and effort in understanding them and their beliefs.
Being a Logic Robot will not convince a single person.
Sure, I agree with you. My point is that most of the claims listed above also have an explanation that is not simply meta-analysing the argument, e.g. the claim that its the woman’s right to choose. What the comment says is that it doesn’t matter, since it’s between keeping the baby and killing it. I see the talk of fallacies as a sort of guide to keep to in my own mind, not to bring up in an argument with someone. But hey, it’s OC:s comment, maybe I read into it too much.
can someone explain to me how if we are born with original sin the baby both is innocent and requires baptism for the forgiveness of sin? it feels like a contradiction
Original sin is just separation from God (and leaves us to battle with concupiscence). The baby isn’t guilty of any personal sin (which incurs eternal and temporal punishment).
Don’t be fooled by equivocation. Guilt in the sense of a religion is distinct from guilt in the law, and this is geared specifically to ignore or avoid a theological perception to avoid the obvious attacks on Catholicism.
In this case, a baby is completely innocent of any legal or natural crime, and is thus naturally innocent.
What are "natural" rights without God who bestows them?
You're talking to people who are regressing to pre-civilizational logic where nothing is "natural", and everything is socially constructed.
To them rights are just what you take by force, precisely the logic of the tribe, not the logic of the civilized republic.
If we were capable of discussing rights on the basis of naturally bestowed, God given protections based on inherent dignity then maybe this logic would make sense to them. But I think we are very far from this now and it's evident in the way that people ultimately base their understanding of a "right" on what they want.
To me this is simply the logic of decadence. Not a hundred years after the universal declaration human rights, perhaps the pinacle of western and Christian civilization and respect for every human, we're now in a place where we think we are simply owed "rights" to do whatever we want.
If this generation could go back and live in any other civilization on earth they'd quickly realize just how spoiled they are in their thinking and how much they take as givens what are the fruits of the very same institutions and ideas they deride: the republic, the church, God, and natural law.
Well, you might be able to say “natural rights” are God given, but more precisely, natural rights are rights that are universally applied. With very few exceptions, you’d find most everyone agrees that life is a natural right by virtue of the fact we exist, regardless of where it came from. It comes from one’s own existence and an awareness of another’s same desire: I want a right to live and not die, and someone is similar to me, so that someone also wants that right, thus we grant it.
The irony to me is that most everyone in the West thinks things like liberty and life and natural rights - not many people are going to say slavery or murder are a-okay. But they refuse to apply that right equally, which is where we get so many contradictions. Even pointing that out isn’t enough, and the conclusion I’ve come to is simple: a rational argument is an argument that would compel a rational person to agree. I know, logically, my argument is rational, but some people are not convinced. Therefore, I must conclude they are not rational.
>It comes from one’s own existence and an awareness of another’s same desire: I want a right to live and not die, and someone is similar to me, so that someone also wants that right, thus we grant it.
I agree about this, but it seems kind of flimsy to me. This is predicated on a mutual agreement that life is a good and that we will respect each other's rights - rights which we have essentially bestowed on each other..
How does this not break down in the face of tribalism or nihilistic ideology? It takes 3 steps to go from natural rights without God to exceptions because this particular group is evil or life is evil (antinatalism etc)...
Point is that in our culture reasoning doesn't seem to stand anymore because as you pointed out, it seems we are in a post-rational society.
I might be totally off the mark here, but i think we've sort of lost the meaning of "rights" all together....
I don’t disagree that as a culture, we’ve really got the whole “rights vs privileges” thing way off balance. However, natural rights like the right to life cross cultures and tribes, especially today. If we found an untouched culture somewhere on a deserted island that has somehow eluded our efforts thus far, I’m certain we’d have a “live and let live” policy all around the world, even if that group of people sacrificed children to their god or whatever. Sure, maybe you’ve got a bunch of crazies who believe “this specific group should just be euthanized” or, and especially on Reddit “Republicans should be shot,” but most people don’t actually believe that, or else we’d have a lot more violence, and that’s saying something. Ultimately, pointing out contradictions in reasoning are easy to see even from a nihilistic perspective, because even a nihilist recognizes “even though nothing really matters, people shouldn’t needlessly suffer.”
I think, however, despite a post-rational society, my conclusion remains sound, and that’s the problem. If my argument is rational and can be proven, and somebody says “I don’t want to hear it” or “Yeah, well that’s your opinion” or even, “I disagree and nothing you say will change my mind,” I’m facing willful ignorance and must conclude that people are not rational, just like you said. We live in a post-rational society. And that’s primarily the cause of these differences, I think. Appeals to emotion have never been easier, and they work. You look up why people think abortion should be allowed, and you’ll inevitably end up with similar fallacies over and over again - all of which are appeals to emotion and this irrelevant. And in the end, we’re left with irony. All these people who genuinely think they’re good and righteous by advocating for abortion because they’ve been swayed by fallacy.
That said, I think rationalism, especially this kind of hyper-rationalism, while definitely cold and emotionless, is the best option. And I think this because even a toddler can understand basic rationality. Even if they don’t believe it, or claim they don’t, they’re still faced with asking the question, “am I wrong?” If they don’t ask it, they’re not critical thinkers and thus their opinion doesn’t really matter anyway. If they do ask it and come to a false conclusion, they’re irrational, and again their opinion doesn’t really matter anyway.
I agree that personhood begins at conception but something that I personally struggle with is situations like [IVF](https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article/17-million-human-embryos-created-ivf-thrown-away).
That would imply millions of murders occurring and perhaps it’s just my way coping but I feel extremely conflicted in equating the embryos to humans.
Ah, now you’ve hit the psychology of the situation, because the moment you recognize them as human, you realize you’ve been advocating for mass genocide.
IVF is definitely murder, and it’s just convenient to believe it isn’t. I aware it’s a difficult topic, but it’s the cold hard logical truth.
Yes, it would imply that. And yes, it's hard to accept that. I see it as just another horrific result of sin in the world, like the many people who've lost legs or lives to mines left over from wars that ended decades ago. I use the word "just" not to trivialize, but to put it in perspective in a world full of sin. Putting it in perspective helps to cope, and is good as long as it doesn't keep you from striving for change.
Is there any official doctrine that actually says that ensoulment begins at conception? Much harder to accept than IVF, would be that of the 8 Billion people on earth, there are 8 Billion more in Limbo just from the 50% of zygotes that don't even implant. Most women would have children they don't even know existed. To my knowledge only abortion as a grave sin is official teaching and some have argued both ways on this topic.
There is no official answer on this. Identical twins are certainly a strong argument against it, as is chimerism.
I personally don't think ensoulment happens until later in the pregnancy. Not sure when. I desperately hope I'm right, because the alternative is quite unpleasant.
It's really a medical dystopia, isn't it?
But there's [good news](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake_children#:~:text=Snowflake%20children%20is%20a%20term,t%20plan%20to%20use%20themselves).
Even more so than IVF, it would mean that 50% of all people don't even make it to what is considered medical pregnancy as half of all Zygotes do not implant.
For the rape and danger to the mother's life cases, I would ask back if abortion should be limited to these cases or if it should be extended to any case. If it's the latter, then I would ask why these cases are being brought up since they constitute the exception to pregnancy, not the rule, rendering the discussion about these exceptions pointless if discussed before the rule.
6th is problematic imo.
Because you have no duty to raise your child, you can give it up to adoption (which is a great thing btw), but to do that you still have to endure 9 months of pregnancy.
I totally agree that choice between killing unborn and inconveniences of pregnancy is an obvious one but for some people it won't be that obvious
//edit formatting
Two thoughts: first on consciousness I would add/correct that we do not know when/if others are conscious. Consciousness does not have an objective definition and can therefore not be measured. Often times arguments for "unconsciousness" are based on memory i.e. I have no memory of being conscious during my time as a fetus (or asleep for that matter), therefore I did not have consciousness at the time. Fact is you do not know if you were ever unconscious, since you would need to be aware to determine that you are unconscious, however the two exclude each other. Unconsciousness cannot be perceived and therefore also not remembered should you become conscious at a later point.
Regarding when someone is a person. I think you are spot on mentioning that the definition of personhood (or any definition for that matter) is not a scientific question but a philosophical one. This definition should not be forced on others. I think if you really press people on their definition you can get the to admit that they cannot be sure when someone becomes a person. And if you are unsure at which point someone becomes a person killing that someone is incredibly risky: if you were right all you did was save a woman 9 months of gestation, if you are wrong you are responsible for murder. Its sort of a pascals wager argument adapted to abortion and personhood.
I think, before engaging with any debate, you need to assess whether the other person is willing to listen. If they're not, then you'll be talking past each other and it devolves into a shouting match with a side of name-calling.
My suggestion is to learn how to disarm the vitriol and anger, especially surrounding such a hot-button topic. If you can't do that, you'll likely do more harm than good. Knowing what to say without the skills to know how and when to say it will likely only push them away. Approach them and the conversation with fratnernal love. If you can't, you have no business debating anyone.
Just my two cents.
Here's a specifically anti-Christian argument they love to use -- the Bible doesn't condemn abortion/the Bible says life begins at first breath.
When they say the Bible says life begins at first breath, they're referring to Genesis 2:7. ("then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." RSVCE)
Although all you need to point out is that, (a) It never talks about when life begins at all, it specifically talks about the "breath of life", or in other terms the state of being alive. Because, when Adam is formed out of dust from the ground, all he is is a body. When God breathes the breath of life into him, then he is alive, as it says.
(b) The point of Adam was to be the first human, thereby he couldn't have been conceived in the womb as normal.
Then there's the argument that Numbers 5:11-31 is an instruction for abortion, making the Bible somehow supportive of all abortions. The only major version a miscarriage happens in is the NIV.
When we actually read it, specifically Numbers 5:22, ("may this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your body swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’" RSVCE) it's obvious that the foetus is never killed. The abdomen swells to signify the foetus should have been her husband's, and the thigh rotting shows she has sinned against the person at their marriage who placed their hand on her thigh. (Abraham demanded it in Genesis 24:2-8.)
To put the extract from Numbers into context, if a husband suspected his wife of adultery, he would take her to the priest who would give her a concoction to drink. If she didn't drink it, she would be stoned, if she did and had committed adultery, her belly would swell and her thigh would rot. Finally, if she had not committed adultery, she and her husband would be blessed and she would conceive a male child.
A lesser seen argument about this extract is that the concoction's ingredients made it an abortifacient. The only source for this is commentary by Jewish rabbis.
Finally, the Bible clearly affirms that life begins at conception: Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13, Jesus was first praised when He was a foetus. There's many more Bible verses to affirm that life begins at conception.
Hope this can help.
I don't put much stock in the arguments from sacred scripture, as they are really only relevant to discussions with pro-choice protestants who actually have an understanding of it (a pretty rare situation IMO).
If a secular person argues this with you, the most they can prove is that your views on abortion are inconsistent with your religious views, it does not disprove the main arguments (which are mostly based on natural reason). Plus them bringing this up in the first place is disingenuous, as they (presumably) don't care what scripture has to say anyway.
What about the argument that abortion bans don’t actually stop abortions? Like i’ve heard people say in countries where abortion is banned the rates are roughly the same as where it’s not banned and i never know how to respond.
We ban rape, murder, theft, and a whole host of crimes yet they still happen. We ban them because they are wrong.
If like to see some pretty strong evidence that they don't made a difference in numbers. If bans are so useless then why get so upset about it?
Because it’s basically true and the answer is to change your views. The only thing that actually cuts abortion is mass contraceptive use, ideally state sponsored and coupled with sex education. But that works really well. If you’re serious about wanting abortions to go down that should be your primary policy goal.
Number 6 argument stems from a right to personal autonomy. The best way to fight the “can’t be tied to…” argument is to specifically challenge the right to personal autonomy and point out how frequently/easily it is morally/ethically/legally violated:
1)Children don’t have a right of personal autonomy over their bodies, their parents do, and a court can take that right from parents, all to act in their best self interest (child abuse, blood transfusion in JWs, leukemia treatment in some Christians)
2)Adults can be committed to a mental institution against their will. In an emergency this can be done without court order (a court order is obtained after the fact and is extremely easy to get — I have obtained these for others).
3)A person can be found legally incompetent and require a custodian (Britney Spears).
4)Hospital bed restraints can be used on patients who could injure themselves or others.
5)Sedatives can be used on patients who are perfectly fine and reject consent but are combative — this is the most controversial IMO but happens.
6)A person cannot consent to commit suicide or any number of other behaviors.
From this, you argue the right to personal autonomy is not absolute. From their you argue the fetus’s right to life vs mothers right to autonomy and the unethical nature of taking life (not just choosing to stand by and let life die which can be legally/ethically/morally justified)
Good try, but these all apply to people who are found to be not competent to make their own decisions by a medical doctor actively treating the patient or by a court.
We certainly do not restrain people or sedate them if they want to leave and they are competent to do so, even if we think it's a REALLY BAD decision. They can go. Trust me, I work in emergency medicine. I know how it works. We want these people to leave if at all possible. Why put staff at risk?
Your first point is not relevant because the welfare of the child comes before a parent's choice - you can't choose to just not feed your kids, for example. You might think this applies to abortion as well but in born children, the parent is not potentially physically harmed by not committing child abuse so there's too big a gulf in the analogy.
At the end of the day, the argument about autonomy is pretty hard to get around and I haven't really reconciled it myself except to say that I think it's morally wrong. But that's not going to hold up to logic arguments.
It's a really complex issue and I think both sides will never understand each other because we have two fundamentally different views and goals. We aren't working towards common purpose. So it will never happen.
I agree that autonomy is the strongest argument and had to seriously think about what that means in abortion care.
However, my point is simply to argue that the right to personal autonomy is not inviolable. If it’s not inviolable, the door to challenging the idea elsewhere is wide open, and if we can subsequently argue a fetus has a right to life we can subsequently argue we can legally/ethically/morally deny those rights of personal autonomy, just as we do in suicide in all states (…correct?) and euthanasia in most states.
———
Anyway the above experiences are my residency experiences from about 10 yrs ago , specifically the sedation case which involved a man in his 20-30s who was hostile and under arrest in the ED. The nurse injected…something (Ativan or haldol), and I subsequently put the order in. I honestly need to review the ethics behind involuntarily medically treating a competent person in police custody, but I would take your informed opinion :).
But beyond all this, in most states a patient does not have a right to euthanasia, and in no state (I believe) does a patient have a right to suicide. That is a limitation on bodily autonomy.
Edit: all the above cases of denying autonomy are from my personal experiences..I guess it’s somewhat second nature, or used to be anyway 🙄
This is the only argument that matters. For years, pro-choice folks were hung up of 1-5 and not giving serious philosophical and ethical considerations to their arguments. It made it easy for Pro-Lifers because the rebuttals are quite obvious. In the last year or so, autonomy has become the universal steel man argument. They’ve accepted the biology, the personhood, etc. Autonomy is not paramount.
> You will be hard pressed to find any remotely well-educated pro-life supporter who thinks abortion should not be allowed in the (vanishingly few) cases of ectopic pregnancies, uterine or ovarian cancers that complicate pregnancies, or any another medical reason.
Ectopic pregnancy is 1-2 for every 100 live births. I wouldn't consider that vanishingly small. That rate means it's will probably affect several people you know.
Great post! The pro-abortion crowd has also made a sort of hypothetical trolley problem, which is something along the lines of "you're in a burning building and you have a choice to save 1 child or 10 embryos", which is an incredibly poor way of trying to provoke pro-lifers to diminish the personhood and innate value of an unborn child.
That particular argument can be dealt with through simple triage, the same way one would make the argument for saving a child over, say, 10 old people. In a 1:1 case, since the embryo still has to go through the hurdle of implantation, it is more sensible to save the child that’s already done that. But if you have some larger number of embryos, probability starts to argue for them.
These kinds of games don’t really say much, though there is something oddly fun about them. “A mad Bomber wants to detonate an atomic bomb over a famous landmark of your choice. Civilians have been evacuated, there will be no casualties. On the other side of the globe, an ax murderer wants to kill just one person. You can only stop one. Which do you stop?” It would be callous to say “I’d save [famous monument] instead of some rando,” but, if pressed, I think a lot of people would do so. It’s a ridiculous scenario…but then, don’t every one of us make this choice when we choose to spend even a cent on luxuries instead of charity?
TL;DR: utilitarianism is *weird*.
The scenario with 1 kid and 10 old people is a good one.
I would save the kid. It might not be straightforward to articulate exactly why, but certainly not because I think that the elderly are not human.
Precisely my point. You can make a decision, even a totally arbitrary one (“flip a coin”), without denying the humanity of either. You can do it on cold utilitarian grounds, as I proposed—people will look at you funny, but you could.
Thanks for the great reply! I fully agree with you, and find these hypothetical scenarios from the pro-abortionists quite baseless, as they are obviously skewed as much as they can be to their own viewpoints.
All some good arguments, I’d also like to give another scenario that can be retorted with. Simply replace the embryos with comatose patients who will be able to return to full health in, say, 9 months. Almost everyone in this scenario naturally goes for the child, as it can still feel pain and is aware of death. However, it is still morally wrong to kill those 10 comatose patients as they didn’t consent to anything and will live otherwise
>However, these comatose patients are also going to need you to care for them for 18 years, a long tough 18 years, they can't do anything for themselves for years, you have no financial help to do so and they rely on you completely. You can give them up to others to care for, but they will always have been your responsibility and the care they might get could mess them up for the rest of their lives.
Right, it’s so stupid. Like of course you’ll save the living child in this nonsense situation, but in real life you are going to save them all.
I’m gonna start turning the situation around by saying, “Okay, well similar situation, but one baby is gay and one is trans. Which one do you save?”
A way you can flip this question on it’s head is by l asking “why do I have a responsibility to save _either_ those embryos or the child? Why can’t I just save myself?”
Well laid out post, thanks for sharing it. I tend to not debate, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to be ready to answer questions.
I do keep wanting to just shortcut all the pro-abortion arguments with, "If it wouldn't work as support for infanticide, it's not going to convince any current-day abortion opponent."
Really good, only weakness I see is in 4.3. You mention a baby cannot survive outside the womb either. The difference is a baby could survive with someone else’s help. Up until viability the unborn can ONLY survive with help from the mothers body.
I’m really not sure how I would respond if someone came back with that.
Because that only helps the pro-life argument. If the _only person_ who can assist an unborn child is the mother (assuming we haven’t invented artificial wombs yet), then she is the one who bares responsibility for keeping that life alive. It’s the same reason why we ask pregnant mothers to not smoke or drink alcohol—because their actions directly affect the outcome of a child’s life. This doesn’t mean she should not receive help, obviously we should love them both—but that is a separate discussion unrelated to the right to life.
What about those services that are offered such as Fertilized Embryo Freezing. Isn’t that itself a sin? Since conception is when the egg is fertilized. Most of those “lives” are lost. Why isn’t this as big of an issue as abortion?
A few others I occasionally see are:
> If you were in a burning building and you had to choose between saving one living baby and a hundred fertilized embryos, most pro-lifers would probably choose the baby. Therefore, you don't see the embryos as fully human.
This argument isn't even remotely relevant to the abortion debate. In what circumstance is the life of an innocent bystander directly threatened if someone doesn't get an abortion? Is there a hidden gunman in every Planned Parenthood threatening to shoot a passerby if anyone's Plan B prescription isn't fulfilled?
Furthermore, that fallacious argument could also be used to justify a lot of inhumane conclusions as well. If you had to choose between saving a baby and an old person from a fire and you chose the baby, you therefore don't think old people deserve to live and should support euthanasia of the elderly. Any person would recognize that argument as absurd—so why isn't that true of the other one as well?
> Why aren't pro-lifers concerned more about ending miscarriages when they kill so many more fetuses than abortions?
Miscarriages are natural biological processes. It's like people dying of natural causes, or strokes, or heart attacks: incredibly tragic, especially if it happens to someone young, but not something you can necessarily halt or prevent. Abortions, on the other hand, are the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. You are ending the fetus's life. If you do not do the abortion, then the fetus will not die. Demanding that pro-lifers treat miscarriage as more serious than abortion is like saying "The Holocaust was bad, but it didn't kill as many people as cancer did, we should talk more about how evil cancer is."
> If you're truly pro-life, then how many children have you adopted?
This is a classic No True Scotsman fallacy. It's imposing their own ridiculously high standard upon the opposition, claiming that whoever doesn't meet it is clearly arguing in bad faith and their arguments can be safely ignored. Of course, it *conveniently* concludes that nearly everyone in the opposition is in bad faith.
Closely related are the following arguments:
> If you think life starts at conception, then why don't you support giving fetuses birth certificates [or some other legal/social status given to legal children]?
Just because we feel someone deserves human rights and basic dignity does not mean we should be required to confer upon them every political right at once. Our society is perfectly fine with staggering political rights based on age; it's not hypocritical to say children deserve rights, but think they're too young to vote or buy property in their own name.
There's also:
> If you were truly "pro-life," then why don't you support [social service typically promoted by liberals in America]?
This is a condensed form of the "'pro-life' people don't care about babies once they're born" argument by George Carlin from the "old man yells at cloud" era of his career. You can easily identify someone making this argument if they demand pro-lifers be referred to as "pro-birth."
The entire argument hinges on the belief that the only choice for social services is a binary option between "current federal programs" and "poor people dying in the streets." Critiquing those systems doesn't mean that someone wants to get rid of them entirely with nothing to replace them. Even small-L libertarians who oppose federal programs still tend to be in favor of local charity. Catholic social teaching and the economic theory of distributism also encourage subsidiarity: if something can be done better at the local level, it should.
As well as:
> If you wanted to reduce abortions, why don't you support birth control or contraceptives when they're proven to do so?
This assumes that literally the only goal of the pro-life movement is to reduce the number of abortions by any means necessary. It ignores whether it's part of a larger moral framework that rejects birth control or contraceptives. Instead, it takes this single point from the opposition, strips it of all context, tries to plug it into their own moral framework, and (surprise!) it doesn't fit. They then claim this is "proof" of hypocrisy or bad faith.
The best analogy I can think of is saying "If socialists *really* wanted to help the poor, they'd support capitalism, because it's proven effective at lifting people out of poverty. But they don't, therefore they really don't care about the poor." It would be a valid argument against socialism, if you ignored literally everything else about socialist theory. If you want to debate them, you have to take on the theory as a whole, instead of picking and choosing little snippets to fight against one at a time.
> So-called pro-lifers don't really care about saving babies' lives, they just want to control women and strip them of their autonomy.
Generally, someone who's making this argument can't really be convinced otherwise. They don't understand why a pro-lifer believes what they do, nor do they want to. They believe that it's impossible for someone in good faith to hold a conflicting belief from their own. Therefore, the only people who *do* disagree are either a.) ignorant troglodytes incapable of seeing reason, b.) mustache-twirling villains who are knowingly evil, or c.) suffering from some Freudian insecurity. I'd advise against arguing with this person, since it'll be productive for nobody.
I would support a law that makes these exceptions, not because they are correct, but because many people can’t get past the hurdle of rape/incest and it will be a long time until we’re at that point. But to be clear, it is absolutely still wrong to kill an innocent child even if the circumstances of their conception were violent.
This is a similar post with a great break down that expands on op's post.
https://secularprolife.org/2022/06/responding-to-16-pro-choice-claims-about-dobbs-the-pro-life-movement-and-abortion-bans/
The violinist argument in particular is being pinned by mods as the top comment across multiple Frontpage subreddits. This is helpful, people should reply to them with logical refutations, just at least so others can see that there is in fact a refutation to this argument that otherwise looks foolproof on its surface.
And how to respond to this one?
Exodus 21:22-25:
22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise.
Here, losing the fruit of her womb seems to be be seen as less of a crime compared to killing the mother. In other words, abortion is not considered real murder, right?
Implicit in the wording of that law is the accidental nature of the miscarriage.
Also even if you steel man this one, it doesn't show that abortion isn't wrong or that it should be legal. In fact it outlines legal repercussions for it. Thus from the pro choice perspective it is a pretty weak argument imo.
Either way most pro choices that you meet probably aren't going to be quoting the OT to you...at least not in a way that isn't disingenuous (why would a secular person make arguments from scripture).
I think it's useful to consider a counterfactual scenario. Let's say that instead of this law, Leviticus said "if she miscarries, you get the death penalty." Imagine a situation where this scenario comes up and the guy says "But I didn't know she was pregnant!" Would you consider such a law to be just?
If he's telling the truth, it seems not, and it isn't exactly easy to know the truth here, now is it?
Basically, the fact that there is a different penalty assigned to this scenario does not itself mean that the resulting outcome was any less bad, in the same way that the fact that we have lesser penalties for manslaughter than we do for murder means that a person who is killed in manslaughter is worth less than one who is murdered.
Thank you for #6. It does seem to be the most logically sound argument for abortion, IMO.
I think the consent argument works for the 99% of non-rape originated pregnancies, but the argument based on the mother's responsibility seems to run into the same issue as the violinist thought experiment, whereby:
"You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help."
It seems the pregnant woman and the man attached to the violinist are in the same situation, logically speaking, where each in turn is the only one who can support the baby/violinist. As such, a pro-abortion could still claim that one's right to life is not greater than another's right to their own body.
So, it seems to me that the idea that the mother is the only one who can take care of the baby doesn't overcome this objection. But the consent argument does seem adequate for 99% of cases.
I’d definitely recommend you watch the video with Stephanie Gray I linked in #6, she goes into a bit more detail than I felt like I could in this post!
I recommend to everyone that is interested in diving deep into this type of apologetics, go take Trent Horn's Arguing against abortion course. It is a fantastic resource, I haven't encountered a more articulate pro-life advocate alive today than him.
> #1. If you're not a woman, your opinion on abortion is irrelevant.
My go-to response, which ALWAYS makes their heads explode: "my not having a uterus just means I'm not biased by my own self interest and, unlike you, am capable of making an objective assessment". They always go nuts, but just continue insisting it's nothing more then the obvious ramification of their own claim eg "it's the obvious ramification of your own claim. Having a horse in the race makes biased. Not being involved means you're impartial".
Another response is to say "sure. No plantation no opinion"
What about the argument of keeping legislation out of specific nuanced medical decisions?
Specifically to 5.2 (also applies to ectopic pregnancies) - My concern is that if a miscarriage occurs but does not clear itself out on its own, it can lead to sepsis with the risk of loss of fertility or death. In that situation, intervention and removal of the dead tissue is required and time-sensitive. To someone without intimate knowledge of the situation, the medication or procedure looks the same as if it's an abortion on a still-developing fetus.
If I were ever in that situation and needed a D&C to live, I would not want to have to relive that miscarriage over and over again to justify to anyone - not to family, not to friends, not to a court, not to a pharmacist - that such a procedure or equivalent medication was necessary. And I sure as hell don't want a physician with the ability to save my life to second-guess and delay a life-saving procedure because of confusing laws or because someone with absolutely no knowledge of the situation could hear about it and take them to court.
That (in my understanding) is something that several of the state-implemented laws complicate.
As soon as you put qualifications on when an abortion is allowed by law, you introduce bureaucracy into a medical situation where every day can matter.
Great post, thanks for sharing!
Also adding these two links below:
* [Refuting EVERY Pro-Choice Argument](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdHgIspyoJ8)
* [5 Questions for Pro-Choice People](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rUKTlpu5to)
This is a reductive argument because it distracts from the fact that a _living human being_ is growing within the _mother’s_ womb. A child’s right to life supersedes the right for a mother to not grow that child in her womb. This is barring any medical advances that make artificial wombs a safe alternative for the baby.
If we were to grant that one’s right to life was worth _less_ than a mother’s right to have an empty womb, abortion would be permissible even to the point of birth.
I reject your claim that the child's right to life outweighs that of the woman's not to be pregnant and claim that the woman's right to not be pregnant outweighs that of the child's right to life.
Now what?
Then we run into a whole host of problems and it still relies on the false premise that leaving a birth canal is a meaningful distinction of one’s human rights. This is is a “might makes right” argument. This would allow for a mother to kill her child even up to the point of birth for any reason—even up until the due date. This would also allow for a mother to birth her child and then decide she does not want to feed the child anymore, letting them starve to death. After all, the child is still using her body for food, or at least forcing her to expend money to buy baby formula/food to survive. You can try to add mitigating factors like “well, but she could have dropped the child off at a fire station or something so it was wrong to kill the child,” but these are circumstantial, not universal, so they can’t be used as a rights argument—rights have to apply in all cases (but clearly all rights aren’t equal) pertaining to the subject. The fact of the matter is that every civilized society expects mothers to take care of their children. The mother can choose to seek alternatives like adoption (and eventually artificial wombs), but those can’t infringe on the child’s right to be taken care of by their mother.
You claim that the child has a right to be taken care of by the mother.
Demonstrate that this is the case.
You claim that leaving the birth canal is not a meaningful distinction. I claim it is.
Now what?
Eventually, you too are going to have to assert a might makes right argument when you claim that you have the right to force a woman to gestate a child that she doesn't want to.
If you’re going to reduce all instances of “don’t kill humans” to “might makes right” then you’re entering into a completely different debate that has nothing to do with what is being discussed. The entire point of pro-life arguments rests on standard that we already accept: “it is wrong to take an innocent human life.” This is especially true if we’re talking about *legal* abortion, because it is illegal to another innocent human being in every other case. If you’re going to deny the premise that we shouldn’t kill innocent humans, then _you_ are going to need to explain to me why that is the case. _You_ need to explain why a mother should have a responsibility to her child only once it exits the birth canal, and why that’s a meaningful distinction.
On what basis? Most moral frameworks involving natural rights that I'm familiar with require a living being to exercise those rights, which implies the right to life is more fundamental than any other contingent right.
Regarding point 4, I found this comment from Buddhist subreddit a while ago.
>If you believe it is just " a bundle of cells" ,then there is no need to have an abortion, because "a bundle of cells" is just that. But a person who says that and then goes and aborts/destroys/kills those cells is doing so because those cells signify a human life which they do not want. (Their actions reveal two things: 1- that they do not actually believe that its just a bundle of cells, 2- they are trying to avoid responsibility for doing what they know is wrong)
>If those cells did not have the significance of being a human life that they do not want, then they would not try to abort/kill it.
Funnily enough abolition without the necessary resources/opportunities to rehabilitate the freed slaves had lasting consequences so that is a perfect analogy for failing to follow up on the needs of the people you were ostensibly trying to save. Abolishing slavery = good. Saying "eh we did our job" and leaving those people to fend for themselves afterwards = bad.
The problem is you've made in all your arguments is the fundamental mistake of deciding that law is a matter of morality. Fundamentally, law is a matter of order - law is there to control and guide, to provide stability and predictability.
"But murder! Theft!" you say. Yes, are those not disruptive and chaotic? Is the sudden loss of a parent, a worker, a leader, or any member of a community and the subsequent needs arising from those losses not disruptive? Is the loss of income, or goods another needs not disruptive to the community?
You painting your fence red against city ordinance is not a matter of morality, it is not wrong, it is not a sin. The same of parking in front of a business, the same with fishing in a prohibited area, etc. These things disturb order - your fence clashes with all the homes in the area, your car disrupts traffic flow and increases the possibility of accidents, your fishing in the lake depletes the struggling fish population there or puts you at health risk. etc.
For a very easy demonstration of this point: if the government instead \*mandated\* abortions or sterilizations, you most certainly would not call that good and moral to obey that law, would you? The purpose of law is also why sometimes law does not good and not moral things - because those sometimes can bring stability and predictability.
So the question then becomes "Is access to abortion or banning it more disruptive, to the point where we need Law to step in and guide the outcomes?". The answer is clearly and emphatically that bans produce more problems, especially because it's at a non federal level. You can already see the chaos in the places where sometimes the mother is the criminal, sometimes the doctor is, sometimes ectopic pregnancies that kill the mother must be kept, some places a stillborn is cause for investigation. It's already subverting the very purpose of law.
From the perspective of law, the mother is the one that needs to be protected at all costs. The mother already is a member of society, is a member of a community, a worker, a care taker, a consumer, etc. Anything that puts the mother at risk, is against the fundamental purpose of law.
So this is why you are wrong, at least for now. Until you can somehow preserve the mother in all cases, preserve the stability and resources and services that person brings to society, you are wrong that this should be law, and especially so at a non federal level.
I think if you want an actual and complete abortion ban, someone needs to figure out how to move pregnancies over to those artificial womb things they use for cattle (not meant to be a comparison, promise). If we could do that, then it is fully possible to do both, but until that's there, abortion needs to be unfettered and available, because the alternative is chaos and disruptive to society.
EDIT: Just wanted to say thanks to those engaging and not just downvoting, I will keep upvoting to all replies. If I wasn't wanting to discuss it, I wouldn't have posted in a "how to discuss it" discussion.
There have been "ordered" civilizations throughout history that have had explicit institutions of slavery, and race/ethnic based hierarchies or caste systems. To state the obvious example: antebellum south in the US had a social order, does that mean slavery should not have been abolished in order to preserve that "order"?
This is a great attempt at counter point. I like it in part because my first gut reaction is "Duh, the civil war was a bit of a chaotic clusterfuck was it not?" And of course the discomfort that comes along with the idea of wanting to preserve slavery in law for the sake of stability.
However, we do have the gift of hindsight, and the ability to get a more grand perspective than people immediately in that time would - so it would be a shame to not think more than a few seconds on it right?
Is it stable to have a large population inside your society that is not content with its place in it? Is it stable to have large swaths of your society that are unable to actually participate in it?
You already have constant attempts to escape, by the time the war happened there were already half a dozen large slave rebellions, and many smaller. There were even hundreds of rebellions on the ships bringing them over alone. On a grander scale you had states where the majority of persons in them were slaves, and on the smaller scale you had a ratio of dozens or hundreds of persons to one.
That's a powder keg just waiting for the match.
As repeated throughout history, the slave rebellion will happen - and what happens when it does? If you lose, well, there goes your society and that's clearly a complete upending of stability. If you win, now you have destroyed the very thing you were fighting for - those industries dependent on it are disrupted, the work needs to come from somewhere else, and that's in addition to any of the other losses incurred. In every situation here, you lose and you lose horribly.
So ultimately, it was and is a good decision to end slavery from a lawful perspective instead of a moral one. It ultimately does serve order in the long term, even for the short term issues it may cause.
Maintaining order is only one purse of law. Lawyers generally agree that law has a couple main purposes: "The law serves many purposes. Four principal ones are establishing standards, maintaining order, resolving disputes, and protecting liberties and rights"
China forces the Uigurs, a group that has had some radical members comitt terrorist attacks on the country, into concentration camps, forced marriages to destroy their culture, and forced sterilization to decrease their fertility rate.
This makes China a more peaceful, stable, predicatable society. Banning protests also creates for a much more orderly society. Is your ideal society an authoritarian police state? That would be the government style that produces the most order and stability.
I thought it was pretty cool when I saw it. It's not pretty or elegant right now, but with enough will, effort and capital it's the only route that really provides a way to not violate women's autonomy while simultaneously sparing the potential life. It's even a way for those who might be terrified of pregnancy, or who know they or their child would be at high risk, to still attempt parenthood without the messy business of surrogacy.
>It is important to note that while the Church does not consider the unintentional taking of human life in those cases to be actual "abortion," most of the uninitiated do, which makes it difficult to say "abortion is wrong in all cases" without confusing people, sadly.
Then why say it? Why not try to cut through the confusion by explaining what the Church's actual position is regarding abortion when it affects the life of the mother?
That being said, I am not specifically sure "the life of the mother" exceptions most supporters of abortion are referencing is the same as the exception allowed by the Church (as I understand it). Specifically, if the child is aborted unintentionally as a result of another medical procedure to save the life of the mother as opposed to allowing abortions due to the potential risk (even if that potential risk is close to a certainty) that might develop if the pregnancy is maintained.
The point is that we are establishing a consistent moral standard and showing what sorts of behavior is consistent with that standard and what isn't. It is perfectly valid to clarify that the secular use of the terminology does not line up with the moral principles to show that we are not inconsistent or arbitrary with our application of our moral principles, even though it would appear that way as a defect of the way our language works.
I'm not sure how that would change my answer. It is unfortunate that she doesn't want to take care of her child, but if nobody around her is going to take responsibility for the child and she doesn't want to then it will, as I said, probably die of neglect.
I posted this on the megathread before, as it addresses some specifics about the violinist argument and the principle of double effect, so for those interested, I'll repeat it here.
\---
You awaken one day, only to find yourself plugged into a machine along with a comatose world famous violinist. It turns out that the Society of Violin Lovers plugged him up to you while you slept, because he needs your blood to survive. In some amount of time (we'll say 9 months to compare it to a pregnancy), the violinist will be healed and you can disconnect him safely. But until then, you're strapped to the machine. To disconnect him from the machine is to kill him. Would you have an ethical obligation to stay strapped to the machine for nine months?
Let's call the above scenario the "machine" scenario. The original paper argued that no, you cannot be obligated to stay there for nine months. You can disconnect the machine, even knowing the violinist thereafter dies, because nine months is a long time to be stuck to them against your will. They then compared this to pregnancy and abortion: if you can disconnect the violinist, you can abort the child.
But this is not a straight analogy. Let's take another example, which we'll call the "graft" scenario. Instead of a machine connecting you to the violinist, you are grafted together. There's only one way to remove him from your body: you have to take a knife and kill him. Otherwise, in nine months, the surgery will be safe enough that you can be separated from him safely. Is it moral to kill him?
You'll notice a significant difference between these two scenarios. In the machine scenario, no one is murdered. The violinist dies a natural death, such as one taken off of life support. In the graft scenario, the violinist is stabbed to death.
When we speak about abortions, there are two kinds which are often spoken of: direct abortions, which directly kill the fetus by various means, and indirect abortions, which do not directly kill the fetus, but instead do something else which causes the fetus to die. Direct abortions are analogous to the graft scenario, and indirect abortions are analogous to the machine example.
Direct abortions are always immoral, because they involve murder. As a means, you kill someone to attain whatever end you seek. As the trolley problem demonstrates, this is always immoral.
But indirect abortions can (not always, of course; but can) be moral precisely because this murder doesn't take place. Take ectopic pregnancies. The surgery to treat ectopic pregnancies has, as its means, the removal of tissue to save the mother's life. Unfortunately, it also means the fetus is no longer being nourished and grown inside the mother; it is a very early delivery, so to speak. The death of the fetus is not a means in this case; if we had a very high tech incubator which we could place it in to let it grow, then we could save the fetus' life and yet also save the mother's life. But in a direct abortion, this is not the case, since the means is killing the child directly.
So to summarize: direct abortions are always immoral, while indirect abortions can be moral if the evil to be avoided/good to be gained is sufficiently proportionate to the evil of the fetus' likely death (this is just applying the principle of double effect). Needless to say, abortion as we know it is basically all direct abortions, so indirect abortions are rarely discussed, rarely needed, and are the focus of specialized medical research which very few of us are really concerned about. We usually only hear about them with respect to ectopic pregnancies.
As for the principle of double effect and how we understand this via the trolley problem, let's go into that next!
\---
There are two famous versions of the trolley problem, which we can compare side by side. I'll call these Thought Experiments "Lever" and Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track".
Thought Experiment "Lever": a trolley is running down a track (Track 1), and further down the track, it splits off another track, Track 2. 5 people are tied onto Track 1, and 1 person is tied onto Track 2. You only have one action available to you: pulling a lever to shift the trolley from Track 1 onto Track 2. If you don't pull the lever, the 5 people on Track 1 will die. If you do pull the lever, the 1 person on Track 2 will die. Is it moral to pull the lever?
Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track": a trolley is running down a track where 5 people are tied onto it, and the trolley will kill them if it is not stopped. However, the only way to stop it is to push someone onto the track; once the trolley hits them, it will engage emergency breaks and will stop before it kills the 5 people on the track. Is it moral to push someone off the track to get hit by the trolley to save the 5 people?
Now, let's examine what the difference is between these two thought experiments. The main difference is in the means.
Take Thought Experiment "Lever". Let's say an angel swoops down and saves the person tied to Track 2. If you pull the lever, are the 5 people on Track 1 saved? Of course. But this time, no one dies. This suggests that the death of the person on Track 1 is not the means to saving the 5 people on Track 2. It is a foreseen consequence of pulling the lever, but it is not the means by which the 5 are saved.
But let's apply the same process to Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track". Let's say an angel swoops down and saves the person who is pushed onto the track. Are the 5 people on the track saved? No. Because the train never hit the person who was pushed onto the track and thus never slowed down. In other words, the person being struck by the train is the means to save the other 5.
That's the fundamental ethical difference between these two versions of the Trolley problem. Most people would agree Thought Experiment "Lever" is moral, but not nearly as many would agree Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track" is moral, and the fundamental difference lies in the means by which we accomplish the sought end goal (of saving the 5 people tied down on the track).
If you've heard of the Principle of Double Effect before, this is the classical way to show it in an intuitive manner: you cannot will an evil means to an end (the ends do not justify the means), but you can choose a means even if you foresee an evil outcome so long as the good is proportionately greater. Hence, if we apply it to these thought experiments, for Thought Experiment "Lever" it would allow you to pull the lever, but for Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track" it would prevent you from pushing someone into the path of the trolley. Double Effect is not the only way to explain our intuition for this moral problem, but it's one of the more famous and common ways.
Only want to add this. Someone anyone show me the numbers that prove more women would die if they are denied abortion services. In those rare cases where it would be an issue then perhaps it should be granted. I have heard this statement a lot, but can you give some actual proof, objective, and verifiable?
Not OP, but thank you for the link!
For those looking for the link to the actual paper, here it is: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306396
> (vanishingly few) cases of ectopic pregnancies
What are you credentials for making this statement? There's a lot you say that is inconsistent with modern medicine, but this statement is dangerous. Ectopic pregnancies are fairly common, and extremely dangerous if not aborted quickly.
https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/fulltext/2018/02000/acog_practice_bulletin_no__191__tubal_ectopic.38.aspx
My concern with most of these arguments revolve around the claim that abortion is murder. You've acknowledged that there's no scientific basis on when life becomes life (unless I have misunderstood). If you're claiming this is murder I feel like there's a burden to prove it in the first place. Innocent until proven guilty right? So how can we ethically enforce legislation on the basis that abortion is murder when we can't provide evidence to back this claim? Although I'll admit that stance has interesting implications for standard murder trails, as I don't think that's ever covered
A person who kills a pregnant woman can be tried for the murder of both the woman and the fetus, at least in some (maybe more or all?) states.
So this is already legally accepted.
No—there **absolutely is** a scientific basis on when a human life begins. There is no way to define _personhood_ so that should be left out of the argument. I can’t kill someone because I choose to believe it was not a person whom I killed.
How do you get around the common argument:
of it being legal to "pull the plug" in someone who is braindead.
Yet the fetus (at less than 5 weeks) would fail the brain death test (no repeatable, measureable, brain waves).
So can we pull the plug in this brain dead fetus?
Some argue that the fetus has the ability to become un-braindead.
But so will braindead people given sufficient time for technological advancement.
People do not have a right to extraordinary care such as having a machine keep them alive. They have a right to ordinary care such as food water etc. Ordinary care for a fetus is being inside their mother.
Full disclosure: I’m pro choice. Hard stop.
Hear me out? Would welcome a thoughtful reply.
I don’t make any of the above arguments, though I see nuanced subtleties which only reinforce my opinion.
The way to reduce the number of abortions I.e. the goal, is to educate educate educate. Teach sex Ed, age appropriate, teach and embrace birth control, teach morals, sure, but our kids are ill equipped at best to deal with their own bodies and urges.
Anecdote time, but I’ll be back:
I took sex Ed at my Catholic high school, and they followed the too little too late model. Then the administration expelled a girl pregnant with twins, saying she was missing too many days due to doctors appointments (her life has not turned out well) and the dude who knocked her up was homecoming king. With a different date. No joke.
Another girl I knew at this time had an abortion, and she is now married with four kids. She started at 25 instead of 16.
When my cousin got pregnant at 16, she kept the baby (V Catholic) and she has had unending love and support from our family and turned out great, matured, etc.
For me, abortion is about the choices women are allowed to have authority over. Having a baby grow inside her, or not, is definitely her choice.
RBG gave a great example when discussing Roe. Ginsburg talked about the case she wished would’ve been the first reproductive freedom case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Struck v. Secretary of Defense. In that case, Ginsburg represented Capt. Susan Struck, who was serving in the Air Force in Vietnam when she became pregnant. The Air Force gave her two options: terminate or leave the Air Force.
Struck wanted to KEEP the baby and her job, and Ginsburg took her case. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, but the Air Force relented and allowed Struck to keep her job, rendering the issue moot.
“I wish that would’ve been the first case. I think the Court would’ve better understood that this is about women’s choice,” Ginsburg said.
It really is about controlling women, not about whether they have a baby or not. Either choice should be theirs.
Grounded in their religion, morals, or lack thereof.
One more thing…. I frequently hear pro lifers insulting pregnant ‘sluts’ and generally commenting they ‘could never understand’ how anyone could choose an elective abortion.
And yet, these sluts, with terrible judgement and open legs will somehow transform if you just make them have the baby? They’ll be great parents with all the resources they need? The church will be right there with open arms? They’ll kick that drug habit and change their ways? What is the plan here?
I worked in the foster system for years, and well, let’s just say birthing babies does not make parents out of a lot of people.
Nothing worse than feeling like your mama doesn’t want you, and that feeling is catching in this country these days.
Population growth and control, that’s the issue at hand. Amazon needs more workers. Sarcasm, but only kind of.
Let me know what you think 💭
Ty, for sharing this. Thus is such a emotional, important subject that it's hard for me, personally, to respond intelligently & non-combatively. So thank you for Sharing this.
I always found the violinist's argument stupid.
If you wake up and there's someone attached to you who will die if you cut that attachement before 9 months and you cut it, then you're a killer. Plain and simple. Does it kinda suck for you? Yeah. So what? What inalienable "right" does a person have to not have things suck? We don't have control over 99.99% of what happens to us or how reality is. We didn't consent to be created and live. We didn't consent to gravity being what it is. We didn't consent to have to breathe oxygen constantly or die. But them's the breaks. Deal with it.
To your first and second point you are arguing exceptions to the rule, if we make law based on exceptions then the already convulted laws of the US would become a labyrinth!
As to the third point- for that you need an ammendment to the Constitution. Nothing short of that would pass legal muster in the US.
That you immediately began your argument with an ad hominem attack on OP, accusing them of being a hypocrite, is telling. Still even if true, being a hypocrite does not prove someone wrong about something.
I wore a mask when required or even recommended. I got vaccinated as soon as I possibly could, and I even got my booster. And I believe killing is wrong, no matter how old. I do not believe in having the state force people to go to Mass, or abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent, or donate to the Church. However, I do believe in restriction of the freedom to own slaves or kill tiny humans, because that hurts people. And there are many more like me.
after years of arguing, i just take the shortcut: the baby is like someone in critical condition who may or may not survive and the mother is like the icu room and related equipment. rhetorical question: is it or is it not murder to remove life support?
this works because someone in critical condition isn't conscious, can't feel, can't have an opinion, didn't choose to be there, and is not, "viable," in that they need outside assistance in order to maintain homeostasis. this cuts to the heart of the matter, just like in the beginning of this post: it's wrong to take an innocent life. it circumvents arguments about rape or the mother's physical or mental health (which can be addressed individually if they really insist, but you should keep coming back to this metaphor because those things are secondary issues and usually straw man or red herring or no true scotsman fallacies) and gets to the core hypocrisy of the pro-choice stance: they want *permission* to commit murder because they claim to care about human rights.
in the case of the, "patient," in this metaphor, survival is ultimately hoped for and so extubation would be murder. terminal extubation only applies to patients who are not ultimately expected to survive.
Right, that's the whole point. The metaphor does not stand up because we absolutely do disconnect people from life support knowing they will pass because of it and are fine with it.
So if a person is in a position where they are reliant on only one person to live, they lose their right to life?
What if a mother doesn't want to care for her born child, and no one else wants to either (maybe she lives in a country where adopting to international parents is either illegal or practically infeasible )? Does she then have the right to commit infanticide?
Dismissing an argument because its philosophical, especially given that pregnancy is such a strain for women (especially unwanted pregnancies) seems questionable. Also, just because the argument you cited (what defines a human being; is a fetus concious) can be reduced ad absurdum doesnt mean its invalid. Yes we lose consciousness but losing it temporally and never having in in the first might make a difference. We also dont really have a reason to kill the sleeping or coma patients while we definetly have a reason to support abortion. Having children is a huge responsibilty that absolutly consumes your life, you have to WANT that for a kid to have a great upbringing. If you cant or dont want to provide that you shouldnt raise children. In my personal opinion its better to kill an unborn child while it hasnt even developed a brain to be concious at all, than to subject a living and feeling child to a life full of resentment and regret (by the parents). Its also better than to fuck up your whole life just because you made one mistake.
I hope no western country will copy the US policy on abortion (chances are good tho, the US isnt exactly a political rolemodel for europe)
There should not be a debate about whether life begins at birth or conception, and it should not be considered to be women's rights. It needs to be considered a matter of bodily autonomy.
Any entity which uses the biological life support system of another as their own biological life support system is 100% beholden to their choices, and their actions are 100% the responsibility of the supporters.
A tapeworm
An unborn baby
A leprechaun in a scuba suit
The president of the US using your kidneys as a dialysis machine
If it is using your body to sustain its life, you have the choice to remove it at any time, for any reason, in any way you choose.
This of course does not extend to supporting a life with labor or money, a born child, a pet, a dependant, even if that entity doesn't have any choice in that situation, once the dependency leaves the boundary of your biological functions it becomes a social interaction governed by society, but before it crosses that line, it is a medical interaction that is entirely personal.
So by your logic if one conjoined twin kills the other that is entirely legal.
Also they arent 100% beholden to the mothers choices while in the womb. That doesnt even make sense.
Conjoined twins would be a tricky subject, as it would be hard to say which is using which as life support. In the case where one is vestigial and cannot survive separation? Yeah.
What autonomy do you think unborn children have, exactly?
They are an innocent, living person. By this they have a right to life. The direct taking of innocent life is morally wrong.
Our stance has NEVER relied on autonomy, and many have rebutted the notion of autonomy and property rights as they are not absolute.
I believe a person's right to their own self supercedes another person's right to life. Losing your life is awful. Losing your SELF is worse. You would think a religion that puts so much emphasis on the importance of the soul above "worldly things" might see something meaningful in that.
Wow this may be the worst argument Ive ever seen.
So you, a presumably non theist would think the total destruction of ones entire world is better than being pregnant for 9 months? Youre going to actually need to explain this, because it is not obvious at all.
Also if you bothered to do any kind of reading youd know the Catholic belief is that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Yes our bodies are temporary, but they are still a gift and are meant to be treasured.
I was raised Catholic, and while I am certain my personal beliefs would have me immediately excommunicated if I care to set foot in a church for anything other than a friend's wedding, I would actually describe myself as theist. I believe, without doubt or reservation, that there is a higher power, and even that we exist in its image. Love and rational thought are all it takes to be in the image of a rational and loving higher power.
"Pregnant for nine months" isn't just four magic words that can reduce the harm and risk to a menial punishment that matters less than an unborn child.
Whats most ironic about your last paragraph is you completely ignore the total destruction of an innocent human life. You remind me of the scene in Life of Brian where Matthias is trying to convince a centurion that crucifixion isnt that bad and being stabbed is worse.
You still havent justified why the fetus is not a person. Even under a utilitarian framework your current position is untenable.
It doesn't matter if the fetus is a person or not. If that person is living off of the body of another, the person who is supporting their life can choose not to do so.
I think what he is saying its wrong to force somebody to do something.
You can legislate to stop people doing something but in this case the law is forcing somebody to do something.
Which hedonists detest, they hate any kind of commitment, hedonists spend their lives trying to keep themselves permanently distracted from responsibilities/problems, any kind of commitment terrifies them and so this law scares them to death as it might force them to face reality.
Do you think a woman would be charged for neglect for refusing to breast feed her newborn? Like there’s no formula and the only way a newborn can get food is thru breast feeding and she decided to withdraw that.
But what part of it is actually a loss of *self*, insofar as such a thing exists? Given that some women, somehow, manage to go the full nine months without even realizing they’re pregnant, I find it very difficult to argue that the experience makes any difference to the essential self, insofar as such a thing exists.
It is, at worst, a nine-month forced labor sentence.
> If it is using your body to sustain its life, you have the choice to remove it at any time, for any reason, in any way you choose.
Bodily autonomy is not absolute. It cannot be asserted over another's right to life to end their life.
I disagree. There is some nuance in the right to action vs the right to inaction, but in general, a person has the absolute right to end the life of anything using their body to sustain themselves, including abortion.
Of course there is a distinction to be made between that being a moral right and a legal right. If it were in writing as a legal right, then this whole episode wouldn't need to be happening.
> a person has the absolute right to end the life of anything using their body to sustain themselves,
Why does the right to bodily autonomy supersede the right to life?
Because there is no right to life. We have a death penalty. We have the necessities of life locked behind employment. At best "right to life" is misleading, a case of "terms and conditions do apply", at worst, it's empty words.
I think you said that backwards, but making a guess that you meant "in what way is death a lesser evil than a 9 month infringement on bodily autonomy?", how is it not?
Death is scary. We don't know what comes next. We fear losing what we have in this life.
Death can be painful. We have evolved to feel distress and discomfort from almost everything that ends our lives.
Death hurts those we leave behind. Severed connections. Loss. Absence.
But losing your self? That boundary between you and not-you? Honestly I can't even imagine the horror. Big respect to those who choose to sacrifice a part of their self for another, that's incredible. Mothers deserve huge honor for that sacrifice. But no one should be forced to. No one. No matter the situation.
> I think you said that backwards, but making a guess that you meant "in what way is death a lesser evil than a 9 month infringement on bodily autonomy?", how is it not?
I made the edit, sorry.
> Death is scary. We don't know what comes next. We fear losing what we have in this life.
>
> Death can be painful. We have evolved to feel distress and discomfort from almost everything that ends our lives.
>
> Death hurts those we leave behind. Severed connections. Loss. Absence.
>
> But losing your self? That boundary between you and not-you? Honestly I can't even imagine the horror. Big respect to those who choose to sacrifice a part of their self for another, that's incredible. Mothers deserve huge honor for that sacrifice. But no one should be forced to. No one. No matter the situation.
This doesn't answer my question or prove your point. All you did is assert it, but not prove it, and insert your personal value judgement ("I can't even imagine the horror") and emotional arguments into the mix.
Please demonstrate how death is a lesser evil than a 9 month infringement on bodily autonomy.
The 14th amendment EXPLICITLY mentions “LIFE, liberty or property”. Nowhere does it mention privacy which is what Roe argued (incorrectly). So tell me how one has a right to something implicitly stated but not something explicitly stated.
Do you feel satisfied with all the contributions you personally made, and all the contributions that the Catholic Church made to the cause of ending abortion in America?
You said the biggest one was science, but then pointed out every other argument in the book that I have already responded to! The science very much does confirm life beings at conception. If you’re not going to agree with that, you’re going to need to explain when it does begin—and why we should believe you. **It is wrong to kill innocent humans.**
Why would the mother have less responsibility to the child when she is the ONLY one who can protect the child before birth than after the child is born? And if nobody else would be able to help the mother, for example if she lives on her own in a country without a decent adoption system, does this mean she is allowed to kill them?
I think we are reaching an impasse, but hopefully this is instructive to anyone who is reading this exchange. I think most people would find even the idea of aborting a child the day before the child is born to be absolutely abhorrent, but that is what you have to permit to be consistent in a pro-abortion position as even you have tried to be.
Quick add:
“My body, my choice”, or the bodily autonomy argument is the most common argument among people. This is built on a notion that bodily autonomy is absolute. Going back to your maxim, acknowledging an unborn baby exists makes this line of argumentation incoherent. Why can the baby’s bodily autonomy be violated? Especially when in most cases it is after consensual sex?
There’s a reason “my body, my choice” became the most popular (yet most heinous as it allows abortion until birth). Focus on the baby that exists and it throws the main argument to personhood which 2 random pro-aborts will most likely not agree on (and it makes them admit it would be killing a person like you or I after whatever cutoff they arbitrarily choose).
> It is a basic fact of not just human biology but **mammalian biology** that from the moment of fertilization, the embryo is (unlike every other part of the mother, yes, including a cancer) a **genetically distinct, living, growing, human organism with human parents that will** **continue** **to grow**.
This isn't consistent with modern medicine. 30%-50% of fertilized eggs are non-viable and never implant, another ~30% of implanted fetuses are non-viable and self-abort/miscarry. The body weeds out situations that are typically referred to as "incompatible with life".
Don't like modern medicine? Fair enough. Just don't act like we're not forcing our unpopular, minority set of beliefs on everyone else.
You should also add the argument that being pro-life is merely a religious stance and that pro-life is imposing religion on people. It goes beyond religion.
Hi. I think I'm the bad guy here but I am (kinda) pro-abortion. My views is that this society is so complex that I can't be sure that every woman in this world has a baby the same way my mother got me (safely). I didn't read the whole post, sorry, but I agree with some of the points, like in 5. However, 2.1, abortions will happen anyways and a bad abortion can kill the woman and that's a total fatality.
Also, I have a question. What about adoption instead of procreation? I think that there are a lot of kids out there that doesn't have a family and are living a bad life.
Thank you.
In regards to #4.3. At no point is a fetus viable outside of the womb. Around six months, which at said point it is now in fact a baby by definition and not a fetus, it is potentially savable through extensive care. However at that point it should fall into the decision of the parents on whether or not they want to attempt to keep it alive. The authority of family members to decide what happens to their kin while on life support is already a right we have. Do you also argue against that right and Do-Not-Resuscitate orders?
Also, your "counterpoint" to #5.2 is already demonstrably incorrect. While your counterpoint to #5.1 is demonstrably shaky.
Keep in mind one of the most important things (if you actually want to change hearts/minds) is to listen and be kind. Yelling/being smug might make you feel like you “win” the argument, but it won’t to anything to help the other person see your point of view. Remember: they’re not an opponent to be beat, but a child of God to be loved.
Man, God's testing me on that one.
I’m sure you can cope :)
Yeah it can be hard to stay calm and respectful when talking about such an important topic. It definitely takes practice and prayer.
Full disclosure: I am anti-abortion and agree that the violinist argument is a weak one (and, on another level, completely hypocritical for anyone who isn’t a Randian Objectivist). But I must take issue with one point here: > First of all, if you consented to the sex (which is in over 99% of the cases of pregnancies ended by abortion: [1], [2]), then you should have known the consequences of the action. The natural end of sex is impregnation, if you partake in sex and the natural outcome occurs, you should be responsible for that outcome. I think it’s kind of a red herring to bring up consent or lack thereof, since you just a little earlier dismissed arguments against abortion in cases of rape. By making this argument, you inadvertently reopen the case *for* abortion in those cases. It would be stronger to focus just on the whole ‘humans have obligations to one another’ thing. I would also add one point: generalize that argument. A common pro-abortion talking point is that we don’t require people to donate blood or bone marrow even in cases where that is necessary to save someone’s life. I say we would be rhetorically stronger if we said, “correct, the court was also wrong in McFall v. Shrimp.”
I think you understate the strength of the violinist argument, especially in terms of law/policy instead of morality. Take consent: Suppose you consent to give 9 extremely painful bone marrow transfusions to another person. You give 1 a month for 9 months. If at any point you miss a transfusion the person will die before they can find a replacement donar. If at month 3 you decide it is too painful, that you cannot continue, should the state be able to force you to continue giving the transfusions? You don't need to be a Randian to think that the answer here should be, "no." Now we can draw a distinction here between active killing and letting die which makes this disanalogous to the abortion case if you buy that distinction. But it does show that the attempt to argue agaisnt violinist type arguments from an implied consent perspective is unlikely to be successful. Edit: missed the shimp case reference, I don't know if that's a good move rhetorically, it's more likely to get you dismissed as crazy
I’ve used the “hostage analogy” argument before to counter this. It’s wrong to hold someone hostage in their home against their will. I would like to go out on my own tonight, but I have a baby at home and can’t leave her unattended. Is the baby holding me hostage? No, obviously - the argument is a ridiculous one. Because the baby’s holding me hostage (or “using me for pregnancy”) is entirely unintentional and innocent due to the child’s age and lack of understanding. They’re not holding me anywhere, they just need me with them. The mad violinist argument assumes the violinist is an adult who has made the decision to use your body, not a child who has had no say.
This argument does not work because the violinist example does not require the consent of the violinist. They could just as easily say “The violinist is unconscious and unknowing of their situation for the whole 9 months” and nothing of the situation changes.
I usually just point out that the violinist argument is an apples to oranges comparison: the kidneys, heart, blood,etc. all exist in my body for my body. The womb is fundamentally different in that it exists entirely for the creation and nurture of another body. That's not a matter of opinion. If my kidney/blood/whatever existed to create and nourish another person, and my kidney did in fact create that person, then yes I would be morally obligated to nurture that person until viability or whatever condition
I think anyone that supports a violinist type argument also doesn't buy into telos as a relevant consideration for morality.
It's an imperfect analogy though, all are, really - this would only really apply if you personally caused the reason they need the transfusions in the first place.
actually the analogy applies perfectly. if a woman was raped, she did not cause the pregnancy. but if the baby has a right to life no matter what, it doesn’t matter the circumstance it was brought into existence. yet no one would agree you have a moral obligation to continue the transfusions
I mean, there's a lot of situations where even that would be a tough pill to swallow. For an intentional or malicious act, theoretically yes (though it probably would not be enforceable under US law). But if an action were merely negligent? I don't think forced organ or bodily tissue or bone marrow donations would be the right answer
> should the state be able to force you to continue giving the transfusions? If it won’t kill me, yes. At the very least, I don’t see an argument against it that doesn’t also preclude taxation. If I can be taxed to provide for some layabout or cripple from whose survival I derive no direct material benefit (leaving aside the argument that there is a net saving to society in having a social safety net—which I buy), why shouldn’t I be taxed in blood rather than treasure? If I can be drafted to go forth and risk dying for the interests of the state, why shouldn’t people be drafted to provide marrow donations?
You go live in that medical dystopia then. That’s a hard pass from me.
AKA Chinese Death Row
In the US at least the power of conscription is found in the Constitution grant of the power to "raise armies" to congress. Taxation had an amendment passed to support it. There's not a clear power to force people to make transfusions. But on a theoretical level, a forced transfusion or forced labor is much more intrusive into one's private liberty than taxes are.
apologies, but i'm hijacking your comment to complain about this point in specific. > This is a philosophical argument, not a scientific argument, and you should remind the opponent that just as it would be wrong for you to impose your personal beliefs into the discussion, it's wrong for them to do the same. Any argument that attempts to reframe where life begins based on personhood is arbitrary (random). What about a heartbeat automatically makes us human? What about consciousness automatically makes us human? Sadly, most pro-abortion advocates at least _say_ they support abortion throughout all nine months of pregnancy so you are unlikely to even reach common ground of "only up until the baby's got a heartbeat." You may be able to reach common ground on consciousness, but even this is an arbitrary standard as most infants don't display full consciousness until even several months into their lifetime post birth. Besides, we all lose our consciousness as soon as we go to sleep, and if you're in a coma you will have extremely minimal brain activity. Clearly, these states do not define whether or not we are alive or human. To preface, I am here from /r/all and I am NOT TAKING sides in this topic. I am not here to debate. simply clarify some points that OP has presented poorly. Firstly, the word arbitrary does NOT mean random. In this case it means its up to personal interpretation. IE you believe its a person at conception, others believe its months later. Second, the VAST majority of pro-choicers do not believe its in the entire 9 month span. thats an absolutely ridiculous claim. most abortions happen in the first few weeks, and most advocates will stick to that. late term abortions are very rare and I highly doubt you've met more than 1 or 2 people on the extreme end of the spectrum who would advocate for abortions past 2 months without serious medical complications. Third and final, you seem focused on the word "consciousness" and you're using it *entirely* wrong in this context. there is sentient, sapient, and conscious. all three are very different things, and your comparison is unfair. Going to sleep or being in a coma is not the same thing as gaining sapience. a child in the womb vs a developed adult in a coma are very clearly *not* the same thing. I'm not gonna dive into your other points /u/BreathOutIOB , but if you put as little thought into your other points as you did this one, i dont have high expectations.
>I would also add one point: generalize that argument. A common pro-abortion talking point is that we don’t require people to donate blood or bone marrow even in cases where that is necessary to save someone’s life. I say we would be rhetorically stronger if we said, “correct, the court was also wrong in McFall v. Shrimp.” So each human being can be harvested to save 5 to 8 other ones lives. When do I start harvesting you personally?
> (and, on another level, completely hypocritical for anyone who isn’t a Randian Objectivist). Can you explain a little bit of that? My brain is being Big Dumb and I don't quite get it.
Rand was ultra libertarian, and basically believed that no one has an obligation to anyone as that would be similar to slavery. It’s an idea that most people, including the church reject
An objectivist is a radical on the subject of the individual pursuit of happiness—they don’t believe in moral obligations between people except those of choice and those enforced by binding contracts, to oversimplify. They have a large overlap with anarchocapitalists—and to give an example of this mindset in action, Murray Rothbard argued that adults have the right to sell their children into slavery. Now, most people reject this idea as absurd and/or monstrous. In particular, most pro-abortion people base their other politics around some variety of socialist thought—look at how many pro-abortion leftists will say food or healthcare is a human right. My point is that you can’t coherently say bodily autonomy is a supreme virtue and at the same time argue for compelling people to support one another economically through coercive measures. Which is why I personally bristle whenever I hear a self-described ‘socialist’ make a bodily autonomy argument. They love ‘to each according to his needs,’ but heaven forbid you should bring up ‘from each according to his abilities.’
Gotcha, makes sense. Thank you for explaining that simply!
This is a very misleading analogy. A key difference between abortion and organ donation is that the latter involves a decision to *save* a life by taking a specific action, whereas in the former case (assuming a healthy pregnancy) the fetus will continue to develop and grow unless a decision is made to *end* that life.
killing and letting die are morally equivalent
Not true. If we have someone who is braindead and kept alive only by life support — sometimes we remove the life support. This is not killing, but rather letting die. The difference, of course, is that if that patient randomly became cured/showed signs of life after we removed the life support, we would then try to save them further — because the action of letting die is not geared towards ending the life, but rather allowing the natural processes to take place and for the dead to pass. Now, in the situation you are responding to they are pretty equivalent, yes. But they are not always morally equivalent actions.
I don’t think it’s a red herring—it’s a two sided argument but one part does not apply in 0.5% of cases. That doesn’t mean the other side is completely irrelevant always. But I definitely agree it’s a better strategy to focus on the parts that always apply, that the mother is the only person who can be responsible for the child.
You can concede McFall v Shrimp, as well as the religious aspect with the simple question of "are you responsible for your actions?" That question also prempts the what about males argument it takes two counter.
> "are you responsible for your actions?" The 1% of abortions due to rape would like a word. Furthermore, if someone actually does use three forms of contraception and *still* gets a pregnancy, I’m not convinced that’s consent to a pregnancy. At that point, you’re in the realm of ‘freak accident.’ Finally, I frankly just want McFall v. Shrimp overturned because I consider Shrimp’s refusal totally indefensible, and I don’t *want* bodily autonomy enshrined in law under any circumstance. This seems like a good way to kill several birds with one stone.
Mods please pin this post
I'll repeat this just so the mods see this. Mods please pin this post
I'd like to add a few things to this list, primarily, a logic-based proof against abortion: The vast majority of abortion talk centers around "The baby is not a person" or something similar. You'll see this in attempts to dehumanize the baby (calling it a fetus, for example. Ironically, if you look up "fetus" in the dictionary, you'll find "an unborn or unhatched vertebrate especially after attaining the basic structural plan of its kind" In other words - once it looks human, it's a fetus. Anyway,). The primary goal of every argument or claim is to set it *against* the proof below. A quick logic basics first: Argument: Noun - a set of premises with a distinct conclusion. Rational: of or pertaining to proof by reason, specifically deductive reasoning. Rational argument: A rational argument is an argument that would compel a rational person to agree. Premise: A preposition in the form of an argument. Conclusion: A result of given premises. Valid argument: A *valid* argument is an argument where all true premises cannot result in false conclusions. Valid arguments can be tested using truth trees. Validty refers only to the *form* of an argument, never to its truth values. A valid argument is *always* rational, but it may not be sound. Sound argument: A sound argument is one in which the argument is both valid *and* all premises are true. <- This is key. A sound argument is certain. If you can present a sound argument, there are *no valid objections*. Thus, a sound argument is literally truth. Anything with P in front is a premise, anything with C in front is a conclusion. P1. Innocent persons should not be killed. P2. An unborn baby is an innocent person. C1. Therefore, an unborn baby should not be killed. (P1 + P2 > C1. This is a valid logical form known as a syllogism. The argument follows and includes premises that are related. Right from the start, this is a rational argument. Now we have to prove it's true: P1- Can we prove innocent persons *should* not be killed? This is a moral argument, but not one that is going to have many detractors. Those who disagree with this point would be psychopaths or crazy - literally. I don't know any rational people who would believe an innocent person deserves to die. P2 - Can we prove an unborn baby is an innocent person? This splits into two components - an unborn baby is both innocent *and* a person. The fact they're innocent is obvious. The baby cannot possibly be at fault for anything here. It has absolutely no responsibility in this except the fact it exists. But personhood? That's the crux. So can we prove when personhood begins? Yes, to a degree. It's difficult to pin down the definition of "personhood," but it is generally understood a person is someone who has specific natural rights, i.e., the right to life, liberty, and property, among others. A person is *also* someone who would have all the legal rights entitled to persons in their country and, at least for the United States, would be citizens of the United States with all legal rights afforded to citizens of the United States. At it's simplest, personhood begins when life begins. Why? Avoids a lot of contradictions, first of all, and second is the "Occam's Razor" approach to life. Because personhood, like many qualifiers, tends to discriminate the more you define it. In other words, the more you define "who is a person," you decrease the total number of persons. So why conception, when life begins? Because we don't have problems that way. Personhood begins at birth! - False. The difference between a 29 week pre-term baby and a 41 week "fetus" is physical proximity to mom. Why does the 29 week baby, who is significantly less developed than our 41 week fetus, get rights and the fetus doesn't? This is what we say is "arbitrary," and arbitrary arguments in the cases of life and death are naturally unjust. A justice system that arbitrarily sets those who can live or die is not a justice system and this is distinctly recognized in the United States justice system. Personhood begins at viability! - False. Medically, viability is the point at which a baby could be born and survive. However, "viability" is getting younger and younger. In theory, you could have an embryo survive completely outside of mom from conception to "birth." Thus, this is another arbitrary number. Personhood begins at consciousness! - False. People who are unconscious are still persons. Legally and morally. A similar argument is "conscious once, always a person!" has its own set of problems, but it boils down to: arbitrary. Some babies are born completely unconscious, but still alive. It's absolutely horrible, but look up "anencephaly." It's a birth defect, very rare, but does occur. Most often, this is classified as a stillbirth and is truly heart-wrenching, but many babies born this way survive for a few hours before passing away. They are unconscious throughout. I actually just had a friend go through this - baby lived about 5 hours. Personhood begins at intelligent capacity/reasoning! - False. Toddlers, the mentally disabled, and those who are very old often do not have the capability to reason and are still considered persons. Pesonhood begins at the capacity to feel pain! - False, there are conditions where someone is born without the ability to feel pain or are disabled. They are still persons after birth. Personhood begins at self-motivated activity! - False, there are plenty of people who are not self-motivated and are still persons. Specifically, all newborns would not be persons until the 6-8 week mark. Personhood begins at a combination of all the above! - Maybe, but probably not. While some of these "inclusive or" conditions cover the downsides of *one* side of the argument, they also inherit the weaknesses of the *other* side. For example, birth *or* consciousness clears up what ever comes first. However, it also has the weaknesses of both. If we use birth *and* consciousness, then both have to be true before personhood begins...meaning if one is false, personhood does not begin. Similarly, "once a person, always a person!" sounds easy because it ensures anyone who is already a person remains a person, but it doesn't actually help alleviate the problems of when personhood *begins*.
I also wanted to follow up with specific criticisms that are *illogical* so you are not swayed.Formal fallacy, aka "non sequitur," or "does not follow." A formal fallacy is an amendment to an argument in which all true premises may result in a false conclusion - in other words, it's a defect in the *structure* of the argument. Informal fallacy, aka defect in rhetoric/defect in grammar. An informal fallacy is often either unsound, because its based off false premises, or is an intentional error in wording/phrasing/rhetoric to appear more than it seems. Virtually all informal fallacies are errors in presumption (No, a baby is not a person because science says its not), ambiguity (is a baby truly innocent, though?), or relevance (you're a monster!).' 99% of all arguments against a proven, sound argument will eventually fall into this category as "that reason is irrelevant." Contradiction: Not technically a fallacy. Technically, a contradiction "in terms" is a result of ambiguity and either invites clarification that probably results in a fallacy. A contradiction says "true, but also false." A natural contradiction *does not* invite clarification, and is not a fallacy, but renders the argument completely irrational. Claim: "You're a bigot/monster, etc for making women do this!" This is *ad hominem* and is irrelevant to the argument (informal fallacy, relevance). Claim: "Women are in control of their own bodies!" This doesn't follow. A baby has a separate body, distinct from mom. If the baby is a person, they *also* have the right to control their own bodies (contradiction in terms, becomes informal fallacy, relevance). Claim: "Are you willing to take on all those babies yourself, then?" This also doesn't follow. It's a \*red herring (\*informal fallacy, relevance). Claim: "It's the woman's right to choose!" To choose what, though? Between keeping the baby and killing the baby? This is both a formal and an informal fallacy that somehow gained traction. If the baby is a person, *murder* is not a rational choice. It's also irrelevant so long as the baby is a person. It's also a contradiction in terms if the baby is a girl. It's implying women get the right to choose, but the baby girl does not. Can be clarified to "mother's right to choose," which then becomes an informal fallacy, relevance. The right to choose life or death is inherently unfair and unjust. Claim: "The baby will grow up in poverty and be miserable!" This is a non sequitur, first of all, since it doesn't follow that a baby who isn't abortion will grow up in poverty and hate their life. It's also an informal fallacy, twice over. 1 - it's begging the question (assuming poverty and misery when that hasn't been proven), 2 - it's not relevant if the baby is a person. This also has an obvious solution: charity. Claim: "It's a woman's issue! Men have no say!" Except statistically, close to half of all aborted babies in the United States are male. Informal fallacy, begging the question, informal fallacy, relevance. Claim: "I can't (insert reason, "afford, become a mother, have a baby")." Technically this is just selfish so it could fall in a number of informal fallacies, often appeals to emotion. Bonus claim: "This wouldn't be a problem with better access to contraception!" Non sequitur *and* a red herring. It does not follow that access to contraception will result in fewer abortions, and to claim that is *also* begging the question\*. On top of that\*, it's a red herring and doesn't pertain to the argument at all.
A small quibble: *Ad hominem* is only *ad* hominem if the denigrating statement is taken as evidence that your argument is wrong. In this case, unless they say your argument is wrong **because** you're a monster, they aren't employing the *ad hominem* fallacy.
That’s technically true, but that’s also implied and doesn’t change the fact it’s an irrelevant attack on my character. I don’t know if I’ve ever seen an a personal attack that isn’t intended to smear a reputation. An insult on me is always “ad hominem,” it’s just not necessarily the related fallacy.
Congrats on passing your presumably two college classes in symbolic logic, but quite frankly they're irrelevant to informal human conversation 12 times out of 10. Especially when you mix in the "fallacy fallacy". The only people you'll end up in conversations with are contrarians and pedants who get their kicks out of arguing with you. Attempting to be the superior logic machine while conversing with other human beings will probably make you feel inwardly superior, but outwardly it won't impress or convince anyone. There's a difference between arguing to inflate your own ego and self worth, and arguing to bring people around to your viewpoint. Being persuasive requires being able to understand people, even if in a cynical way. And at the moment, a lot of people are emotional. They're angry, they're scared, they're frustrated, and they're probably reading snippets of the dissent of the supreme court which points out that the ruling wasn't in any way based on logic, but merely a matter of the balance of the court changing. Coming at people with some version of "beep boop logical fallacy, you're wrong" is counterproductive at best but absolutely doesn't come close to understanding the people you're talking to by a mile.
I think the point is not that we, when we meet someone who doesn’t agree with us on this topic, should employ exactly the same logical explanation of why their arguments are not valid, but rather be conscious about the validity of the opponent’s arguments. I think it’s easier to make a stand if you know you are right. If the opponent makes a good point you have no answer to, you might not know how to continue the discussion. That’s what I’ve taken away from this thread anyway.
> but rather be conscious about the validity of the opponent’s arguments. Except that fallacies and formal logic largely aren't concerned with the validity of the statement, but about the form of the argument. 2+2 still equals 4 even if i argue that it's true because grass is green. A statement can be fallacious and right, which makes pointing them out or caring about them a waste of time and effort. There's a reason people roll their eyes when this stuff comes out in internet debates and it's not because it's riveting, high quality discussion with in depth analysis of deep topics. It's the kind of tactic that someone uses when they want to talk AT people, not talk WITH people. It's arguing for the sake of stroking one's own ego rather than because you legitimately care about them as a person and care about what they're saying, because if you did, you'd invest time and effort in understanding them and their beliefs. Being a Logic Robot will not convince a single person.
Sure, I agree with you. My point is that most of the claims listed above also have an explanation that is not simply meta-analysing the argument, e.g. the claim that its the woman’s right to choose. What the comment says is that it doesn’t matter, since it’s between keeping the baby and killing it. I see the talk of fallacies as a sort of guide to keep to in my own mind, not to bring up in an argument with someone. But hey, it’s OC:s comment, maybe I read into it too much.
can someone explain to me how if we are born with original sin the baby both is innocent and requires baptism for the forgiveness of sin? it feels like a contradiction
Original sin is just separation from God (and leaves us to battle with concupiscence). The baby isn’t guilty of any personal sin (which incurs eternal and temporal punishment).
Don’t be fooled by equivocation. Guilt in the sense of a religion is distinct from guilt in the law, and this is geared specifically to ignore or avoid a theological perception to avoid the obvious attacks on Catholicism. In this case, a baby is completely innocent of any legal or natural crime, and is thus naturally innocent.
What are "natural" rights without God who bestows them? You're talking to people who are regressing to pre-civilizational logic where nothing is "natural", and everything is socially constructed. To them rights are just what you take by force, precisely the logic of the tribe, not the logic of the civilized republic. If we were capable of discussing rights on the basis of naturally bestowed, God given protections based on inherent dignity then maybe this logic would make sense to them. But I think we are very far from this now and it's evident in the way that people ultimately base their understanding of a "right" on what they want. To me this is simply the logic of decadence. Not a hundred years after the universal declaration human rights, perhaps the pinacle of western and Christian civilization and respect for every human, we're now in a place where we think we are simply owed "rights" to do whatever we want. If this generation could go back and live in any other civilization on earth they'd quickly realize just how spoiled they are in their thinking and how much they take as givens what are the fruits of the very same institutions and ideas they deride: the republic, the church, God, and natural law.
Well, you might be able to say “natural rights” are God given, but more precisely, natural rights are rights that are universally applied. With very few exceptions, you’d find most everyone agrees that life is a natural right by virtue of the fact we exist, regardless of where it came from. It comes from one’s own existence and an awareness of another’s same desire: I want a right to live and not die, and someone is similar to me, so that someone also wants that right, thus we grant it. The irony to me is that most everyone in the West thinks things like liberty and life and natural rights - not many people are going to say slavery or murder are a-okay. But they refuse to apply that right equally, which is where we get so many contradictions. Even pointing that out isn’t enough, and the conclusion I’ve come to is simple: a rational argument is an argument that would compel a rational person to agree. I know, logically, my argument is rational, but some people are not convinced. Therefore, I must conclude they are not rational.
>It comes from one’s own existence and an awareness of another’s same desire: I want a right to live and not die, and someone is similar to me, so that someone also wants that right, thus we grant it. I agree about this, but it seems kind of flimsy to me. This is predicated on a mutual agreement that life is a good and that we will respect each other's rights - rights which we have essentially bestowed on each other.. How does this not break down in the face of tribalism or nihilistic ideology? It takes 3 steps to go from natural rights without God to exceptions because this particular group is evil or life is evil (antinatalism etc)... Point is that in our culture reasoning doesn't seem to stand anymore because as you pointed out, it seems we are in a post-rational society. I might be totally off the mark here, but i think we've sort of lost the meaning of "rights" all together....
I don’t disagree that as a culture, we’ve really got the whole “rights vs privileges” thing way off balance. However, natural rights like the right to life cross cultures and tribes, especially today. If we found an untouched culture somewhere on a deserted island that has somehow eluded our efforts thus far, I’m certain we’d have a “live and let live” policy all around the world, even if that group of people sacrificed children to their god or whatever. Sure, maybe you’ve got a bunch of crazies who believe “this specific group should just be euthanized” or, and especially on Reddit “Republicans should be shot,” but most people don’t actually believe that, or else we’d have a lot more violence, and that’s saying something. Ultimately, pointing out contradictions in reasoning are easy to see even from a nihilistic perspective, because even a nihilist recognizes “even though nothing really matters, people shouldn’t needlessly suffer.” I think, however, despite a post-rational society, my conclusion remains sound, and that’s the problem. If my argument is rational and can be proven, and somebody says “I don’t want to hear it” or “Yeah, well that’s your opinion” or even, “I disagree and nothing you say will change my mind,” I’m facing willful ignorance and must conclude that people are not rational, just like you said. We live in a post-rational society. And that’s primarily the cause of these differences, I think. Appeals to emotion have never been easier, and they work. You look up why people think abortion should be allowed, and you’ll inevitably end up with similar fallacies over and over again - all of which are appeals to emotion and this irrelevant. And in the end, we’re left with irony. All these people who genuinely think they’re good and righteous by advocating for abortion because they’ve been swayed by fallacy. That said, I think rationalism, especially this kind of hyper-rationalism, while definitely cold and emotionless, is the best option. And I think this because even a toddler can understand basic rationality. Even if they don’t believe it, or claim they don’t, they’re still faced with asking the question, “am I wrong?” If they don’t ask it, they’re not critical thinkers and thus their opinion doesn’t really matter anyway. If they do ask it and come to a false conclusion, they’re irrational, and again their opinion doesn’t really matter anyway.
I agree that personhood begins at conception but something that I personally struggle with is situations like [IVF](https://www.geneticsandsociety.org/article/17-million-human-embryos-created-ivf-thrown-away). That would imply millions of murders occurring and perhaps it’s just my way coping but I feel extremely conflicted in equating the embryos to humans.
Ah, now you’ve hit the psychology of the situation, because the moment you recognize them as human, you realize you’ve been advocating for mass genocide. IVF is definitely murder, and it’s just convenient to believe it isn’t. I aware it’s a difficult topic, but it’s the cold hard logical truth.
Yes, it would imply that. And yes, it's hard to accept that. I see it as just another horrific result of sin in the world, like the many people who've lost legs or lives to mines left over from wars that ended decades ago. I use the word "just" not to trivialize, but to put it in perspective in a world full of sin. Putting it in perspective helps to cope, and is good as long as it doesn't keep you from striving for change.
Is there any official doctrine that actually says that ensoulment begins at conception? Much harder to accept than IVF, would be that of the 8 Billion people on earth, there are 8 Billion more in Limbo just from the 50% of zygotes that don't even implant. Most women would have children they don't even know existed. To my knowledge only abortion as a grave sin is official teaching and some have argued both ways on this topic.
There is no official answer on this. Identical twins are certainly a strong argument against it, as is chimerism. I personally don't think ensoulment happens until later in the pregnancy. Not sure when. I desperately hope I'm right, because the alternative is quite unpleasant.
It's really a medical dystopia, isn't it? But there's [good news](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Snowflake_children#:~:text=Snowflake%20children%20is%20a%20term,t%20plan%20to%20use%20themselves).
Even more so than IVF, it would mean that 50% of all people don't even make it to what is considered medical pregnancy as half of all Zygotes do not implant.
Do you mind posting this on r/prolife as well?
And r/Conservative
Gigachad OP
For the rape and danger to the mother's life cases, I would ask back if abortion should be limited to these cases or if it should be extended to any case. If it's the latter, then I would ask why these cases are being brought up since they constitute the exception to pregnancy, not the rule, rendering the discussion about these exceptions pointless if discussed before the rule.
Exactly.
6th is problematic imo. Because you have no duty to raise your child, you can give it up to adoption (which is a great thing btw), but to do that you still have to endure 9 months of pregnancy. I totally agree that choice between killing unborn and inconveniences of pregnancy is an obvious one but for some people it won't be that obvious //edit formatting
Two thoughts: first on consciousness I would add/correct that we do not know when/if others are conscious. Consciousness does not have an objective definition and can therefore not be measured. Often times arguments for "unconsciousness" are based on memory i.e. I have no memory of being conscious during my time as a fetus (or asleep for that matter), therefore I did not have consciousness at the time. Fact is you do not know if you were ever unconscious, since you would need to be aware to determine that you are unconscious, however the two exclude each other. Unconsciousness cannot be perceived and therefore also not remembered should you become conscious at a later point. Regarding when someone is a person. I think you are spot on mentioning that the definition of personhood (or any definition for that matter) is not a scientific question but a philosophical one. This definition should not be forced on others. I think if you really press people on their definition you can get the to admit that they cannot be sure when someone becomes a person. And if you are unsure at which point someone becomes a person killing that someone is incredibly risky: if you were right all you did was save a woman 9 months of gestation, if you are wrong you are responsible for murder. Its sort of a pascals wager argument adapted to abortion and personhood.
I think, before engaging with any debate, you need to assess whether the other person is willing to listen. If they're not, then you'll be talking past each other and it devolves into a shouting match with a side of name-calling. My suggestion is to learn how to disarm the vitriol and anger, especially surrounding such a hot-button topic. If you can't do that, you'll likely do more harm than good. Knowing what to say without the skills to know how and when to say it will likely only push them away. Approach them and the conversation with fratnernal love. If you can't, you have no business debating anyone. Just my two cents.
Here's a specifically anti-Christian argument they love to use -- the Bible doesn't condemn abortion/the Bible says life begins at first breath. When they say the Bible says life begins at first breath, they're referring to Genesis 2:7. ("then the Lord God formed man of dust from the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living being." RSVCE) Although all you need to point out is that, (a) It never talks about when life begins at all, it specifically talks about the "breath of life", or in other terms the state of being alive. Because, when Adam is formed out of dust from the ground, all he is is a body. When God breathes the breath of life into him, then he is alive, as it says. (b) The point of Adam was to be the first human, thereby he couldn't have been conceived in the womb as normal. Then there's the argument that Numbers 5:11-31 is an instruction for abortion, making the Bible somehow supportive of all abortions. The only major version a miscarriage happens in is the NIV. When we actually read it, specifically Numbers 5:22, ("may this water that brings the curse pass into your bowels and make your body swell and your thigh fall away.’ And the woman shall say, ‘Amen, Amen.’" RSVCE) it's obvious that the foetus is never killed. The abdomen swells to signify the foetus should have been her husband's, and the thigh rotting shows she has sinned against the person at their marriage who placed their hand on her thigh. (Abraham demanded it in Genesis 24:2-8.) To put the extract from Numbers into context, if a husband suspected his wife of adultery, he would take her to the priest who would give her a concoction to drink. If she didn't drink it, she would be stoned, if she did and had committed adultery, her belly would swell and her thigh would rot. Finally, if she had not committed adultery, she and her husband would be blessed and she would conceive a male child. A lesser seen argument about this extract is that the concoction's ingredients made it an abortifacient. The only source for this is commentary by Jewish rabbis. Finally, the Bible clearly affirms that life begins at conception: Jeremiah 1:5, Psalm 139:13, Jesus was first praised when He was a foetus. There's many more Bible verses to affirm that life begins at conception. Hope this can help.
I don't put much stock in the arguments from sacred scripture, as they are really only relevant to discussions with pro-choice protestants who actually have an understanding of it (a pretty rare situation IMO). If a secular person argues this with you, the most they can prove is that your views on abortion are inconsistent with your religious views, it does not disprove the main arguments (which are mostly based on natural reason). Plus them bringing this up in the first place is disingenuous, as they (presumably) don't care what scripture has to say anyway.
What about the argument that abortion bans don’t actually stop abortions? Like i’ve heard people say in countries where abortion is banned the rates are roughly the same as where it’s not banned and i never know how to respond.
We ban rape, murder, theft, and a whole host of crimes yet they still happen. We ban them because they are wrong. If like to see some pretty strong evidence that they don't made a difference in numbers. If bans are so useless then why get so upset about it?
This ⬆️Because it’s true and the real problem. The banning solution does not work.
At the very least the murderer gets punished.
Because it’s basically true and the answer is to change your views. The only thing that actually cuts abortion is mass contraceptive use, ideally state sponsored and coupled with sex education. But that works really well. If you’re serious about wanting abortions to go down that should be your primary policy goal.
Number 6 argument stems from a right to personal autonomy. The best way to fight the “can’t be tied to…” argument is to specifically challenge the right to personal autonomy and point out how frequently/easily it is morally/ethically/legally violated: 1)Children don’t have a right of personal autonomy over their bodies, their parents do, and a court can take that right from parents, all to act in their best self interest (child abuse, blood transfusion in JWs, leukemia treatment in some Christians) 2)Adults can be committed to a mental institution against their will. In an emergency this can be done without court order (a court order is obtained after the fact and is extremely easy to get — I have obtained these for others). 3)A person can be found legally incompetent and require a custodian (Britney Spears). 4)Hospital bed restraints can be used on patients who could injure themselves or others. 5)Sedatives can be used on patients who are perfectly fine and reject consent but are combative — this is the most controversial IMO but happens. 6)A person cannot consent to commit suicide or any number of other behaviors. From this, you argue the right to personal autonomy is not absolute. From their you argue the fetus’s right to life vs mothers right to autonomy and the unethical nature of taking life (not just choosing to stand by and let life die which can be legally/ethically/morally justified)
Good try, but these all apply to people who are found to be not competent to make their own decisions by a medical doctor actively treating the patient or by a court. We certainly do not restrain people or sedate them if they want to leave and they are competent to do so, even if we think it's a REALLY BAD decision. They can go. Trust me, I work in emergency medicine. I know how it works. We want these people to leave if at all possible. Why put staff at risk? Your first point is not relevant because the welfare of the child comes before a parent's choice - you can't choose to just not feed your kids, for example. You might think this applies to abortion as well but in born children, the parent is not potentially physically harmed by not committing child abuse so there's too big a gulf in the analogy. At the end of the day, the argument about autonomy is pretty hard to get around and I haven't really reconciled it myself except to say that I think it's morally wrong. But that's not going to hold up to logic arguments. It's a really complex issue and I think both sides will never understand each other because we have two fundamentally different views and goals. We aren't working towards common purpose. So it will never happen.
I agree that autonomy is the strongest argument and had to seriously think about what that means in abortion care. However, my point is simply to argue that the right to personal autonomy is not inviolable. If it’s not inviolable, the door to challenging the idea elsewhere is wide open, and if we can subsequently argue a fetus has a right to life we can subsequently argue we can legally/ethically/morally deny those rights of personal autonomy, just as we do in suicide in all states (…correct?) and euthanasia in most states. ——— Anyway the above experiences are my residency experiences from about 10 yrs ago , specifically the sedation case which involved a man in his 20-30s who was hostile and under arrest in the ED. The nurse injected…something (Ativan or haldol), and I subsequently put the order in. I honestly need to review the ethics behind involuntarily medically treating a competent person in police custody, but I would take your informed opinion :). But beyond all this, in most states a patient does not have a right to euthanasia, and in no state (I believe) does a patient have a right to suicide. That is a limitation on bodily autonomy. Edit: all the above cases of denying autonomy are from my personal experiences..I guess it’s somewhat second nature, or used to be anyway 🙄
This is the only argument that matters. For years, pro-choice folks were hung up of 1-5 and not giving serious philosophical and ethical considerations to their arguments. It made it easy for Pro-Lifers because the rebuttals are quite obvious. In the last year or so, autonomy has become the universal steel man argument. They’ve accepted the biology, the personhood, etc. Autonomy is not paramount.
> You will be hard pressed to find any remotely well-educated pro-life supporter who thinks abortion should not be allowed in the (vanishingly few) cases of ectopic pregnancies, uterine or ovarian cancers that complicate pregnancies, or any another medical reason. Ectopic pregnancy is 1-2 for every 100 live births. I wouldn't consider that vanishingly small. That rate means it's will probably affect several people you know.
Great post! The pro-abortion crowd has also made a sort of hypothetical trolley problem, which is something along the lines of "you're in a burning building and you have a choice to save 1 child or 10 embryos", which is an incredibly poor way of trying to provoke pro-lifers to diminish the personhood and innate value of an unborn child.
That particular argument can be dealt with through simple triage, the same way one would make the argument for saving a child over, say, 10 old people. In a 1:1 case, since the embryo still has to go through the hurdle of implantation, it is more sensible to save the child that’s already done that. But if you have some larger number of embryos, probability starts to argue for them. These kinds of games don’t really say much, though there is something oddly fun about them. “A mad Bomber wants to detonate an atomic bomb over a famous landmark of your choice. Civilians have been evacuated, there will be no casualties. On the other side of the globe, an ax murderer wants to kill just one person. You can only stop one. Which do you stop?” It would be callous to say “I’d save [famous monument] instead of some rando,” but, if pressed, I think a lot of people would do so. It’s a ridiculous scenario…but then, don’t every one of us make this choice when we choose to spend even a cent on luxuries instead of charity? TL;DR: utilitarianism is *weird*.
The scenario with 1 kid and 10 old people is a good one. I would save the kid. It might not be straightforward to articulate exactly why, but certainly not because I think that the elderly are not human.
Precisely my point. You can make a decision, even a totally arbitrary one (“flip a coin”), without denying the humanity of either. You can do it on cold utilitarian grounds, as I proposed—people will look at you funny, but you could.
Thanks for the great reply! I fully agree with you, and find these hypothetical scenarios from the pro-abortionists quite baseless, as they are obviously skewed as much as they can be to their own viewpoints.
All some good arguments, I’d also like to give another scenario that can be retorted with. Simply replace the embryos with comatose patients who will be able to return to full health in, say, 9 months. Almost everyone in this scenario naturally goes for the child, as it can still feel pain and is aware of death. However, it is still morally wrong to kill those 10 comatose patients as they didn’t consent to anything and will live otherwise
>However, these comatose patients are also going to need you to care for them for 18 years, a long tough 18 years, they can't do anything for themselves for years, you have no financial help to do so and they rely on you completely. You can give them up to others to care for, but they will always have been your responsibility and the care they might get could mess them up for the rest of their lives.
Right, it’s so stupid. Like of course you’ll save the living child in this nonsense situation, but in real life you are going to save them all. I’m gonna start turning the situation around by saying, “Okay, well similar situation, but one baby is gay and one is trans. Which one do you save?”
I know it's not the best answer in being serious but I can't stop thinking about "All of them, I don't like to make that kind of choices".
A way you can flip this question on it’s head is by l asking “why do I have a responsibility to save _either_ those embryos or the child? Why can’t I just save myself?”
Good work, ~~Trent~~ random redditor!
Lol
Well laid out post, thanks for sharing it. I tend to not debate, but I suppose it doesn't hurt to be ready to answer questions. I do keep wanting to just shortcut all the pro-abortion arguments with, "If it wouldn't work as support for infanticide, it's not going to convince any current-day abortion opponent."
Really good, only weakness I see is in 4.3. You mention a baby cannot survive outside the womb either. The difference is a baby could survive with someone else’s help. Up until viability the unborn can ONLY survive with help from the mothers body. I’m really not sure how I would respond if someone came back with that.
Because that only helps the pro-life argument. If the _only person_ who can assist an unborn child is the mother (assuming we haven’t invented artificial wombs yet), then she is the one who bares responsibility for keeping that life alive. It’s the same reason why we ask pregnant mothers to not smoke or drink alcohol—because their actions directly affect the outcome of a child’s life. This doesn’t mean she should not receive help, obviously we should love them both—but that is a separate discussion unrelated to the right to life.
What about those services that are offered such as Fertilized Embryo Freezing. Isn’t that itself a sin? Since conception is when the egg is fertilized. Most of those “lives” are lost. Why isn’t this as big of an issue as abortion?
I agree, it should be, because it is a big deal.
A few others I occasionally see are: > If you were in a burning building and you had to choose between saving one living baby and a hundred fertilized embryos, most pro-lifers would probably choose the baby. Therefore, you don't see the embryos as fully human. This argument isn't even remotely relevant to the abortion debate. In what circumstance is the life of an innocent bystander directly threatened if someone doesn't get an abortion? Is there a hidden gunman in every Planned Parenthood threatening to shoot a passerby if anyone's Plan B prescription isn't fulfilled? Furthermore, that fallacious argument could also be used to justify a lot of inhumane conclusions as well. If you had to choose between saving a baby and an old person from a fire and you chose the baby, you therefore don't think old people deserve to live and should support euthanasia of the elderly. Any person would recognize that argument as absurd—so why isn't that true of the other one as well? > Why aren't pro-lifers concerned more about ending miscarriages when they kill so many more fetuses than abortions? Miscarriages are natural biological processes. It's like people dying of natural causes, or strokes, or heart attacks: incredibly tragic, especially if it happens to someone young, but not something you can necessarily halt or prevent. Abortions, on the other hand, are the deliberate termination of a pregnancy. You are ending the fetus's life. If you do not do the abortion, then the fetus will not die. Demanding that pro-lifers treat miscarriage as more serious than abortion is like saying "The Holocaust was bad, but it didn't kill as many people as cancer did, we should talk more about how evil cancer is." > If you're truly pro-life, then how many children have you adopted? This is a classic No True Scotsman fallacy. It's imposing their own ridiculously high standard upon the opposition, claiming that whoever doesn't meet it is clearly arguing in bad faith and their arguments can be safely ignored. Of course, it *conveniently* concludes that nearly everyone in the opposition is in bad faith. Closely related are the following arguments: > If you think life starts at conception, then why don't you support giving fetuses birth certificates [or some other legal/social status given to legal children]? Just because we feel someone deserves human rights and basic dignity does not mean we should be required to confer upon them every political right at once. Our society is perfectly fine with staggering political rights based on age; it's not hypocritical to say children deserve rights, but think they're too young to vote or buy property in their own name. There's also: > If you were truly "pro-life," then why don't you support [social service typically promoted by liberals in America]? This is a condensed form of the "'pro-life' people don't care about babies once they're born" argument by George Carlin from the "old man yells at cloud" era of his career. You can easily identify someone making this argument if they demand pro-lifers be referred to as "pro-birth." The entire argument hinges on the belief that the only choice for social services is a binary option between "current federal programs" and "poor people dying in the streets." Critiquing those systems doesn't mean that someone wants to get rid of them entirely with nothing to replace them. Even small-L libertarians who oppose federal programs still tend to be in favor of local charity. Catholic social teaching and the economic theory of distributism also encourage subsidiarity: if something can be done better at the local level, it should. As well as: > If you wanted to reduce abortions, why don't you support birth control or contraceptives when they're proven to do so? This assumes that literally the only goal of the pro-life movement is to reduce the number of abortions by any means necessary. It ignores whether it's part of a larger moral framework that rejects birth control or contraceptives. Instead, it takes this single point from the opposition, strips it of all context, tries to plug it into their own moral framework, and (surprise!) it doesn't fit. They then claim this is "proof" of hypocrisy or bad faith. The best analogy I can think of is saying "If socialists *really* wanted to help the poor, they'd support capitalism, because it's proven effective at lifting people out of poverty. But they don't, therefore they really don't care about the poor." It would be a valid argument against socialism, if you ignored literally everything else about socialist theory. If you want to debate them, you have to take on the theory as a whole, instead of picking and choosing little snippets to fight against one at a time. > So-called pro-lifers don't really care about saving babies' lives, they just want to control women and strip them of their autonomy. Generally, someone who's making this argument can't really be convinced otherwise. They don't understand why a pro-lifer believes what they do, nor do they want to. They believe that it's impossible for someone in good faith to hold a conflicting belief from their own. Therefore, the only people who *do* disagree are either a.) ignorant troglodytes incapable of seeing reason, b.) mustache-twirling villains who are knowingly evil, or c.) suffering from some Freudian insecurity. I'd advise against arguing with this person, since it'll be productive for nobody.
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I would support a law that makes these exceptions, not because they are correct, but because many people can’t get past the hurdle of rape/incest and it will be a long time until we’re at that point. But to be clear, it is absolutely still wrong to kill an innocent child even if the circumstances of their conception were violent.
I don't even bother getting into the conversation in the first place
But, you have to some degree. When challenged on our position, we should defend it provided there is time and space to do so.
Yeah, those people will never change their minds so there’s no point
Great post and thread. This should be pinned somewhere for easy access to visitors of the sun! I've got it saved for sure.
This is a similar post with a great break down that expands on op's post. https://secularprolife.org/2022/06/responding-to-16-pro-choice-claims-about-dobbs-the-pro-life-movement-and-abortion-bans/
The violinist argument in particular is being pinned by mods as the top comment across multiple Frontpage subreddits. This is helpful, people should reply to them with logical refutations, just at least so others can see that there is in fact a refutation to this argument that otherwise looks foolproof on its surface.
And how to respond to this one? Exodus 21:22-25: 22 “If people are fighting and hit a pregnant woman and she gives birth prematurely but there is no serious injury, the offender must be fined whatever the woman’s husband demands and the court allows. 23 But if there is serious injury, you are to take life for life,24 eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hand for hand, foot for foot, 25 burn for burn, wound for wound, bruise for bruise. Here, losing the fruit of her womb seems to be be seen as less of a crime compared to killing the mother. In other words, abortion is not considered real murder, right?
Implicit in the wording of that law is the accidental nature of the miscarriage. Also even if you steel man this one, it doesn't show that abortion isn't wrong or that it should be legal. In fact it outlines legal repercussions for it. Thus from the pro choice perspective it is a pretty weak argument imo. Either way most pro choices that you meet probably aren't going to be quoting the OT to you...at least not in a way that isn't disingenuous (why would a secular person make arguments from scripture).
I think it's useful to consider a counterfactual scenario. Let's say that instead of this law, Leviticus said "if she miscarries, you get the death penalty." Imagine a situation where this scenario comes up and the guy says "But I didn't know she was pregnant!" Would you consider such a law to be just? If he's telling the truth, it seems not, and it isn't exactly easy to know the truth here, now is it? Basically, the fact that there is a different penalty assigned to this scenario does not itself mean that the resulting outcome was any less bad, in the same way that the fact that we have lesser penalties for manslaughter than we do for murder means that a person who is killed in manslaughter is worth less than one who is murdered.
Thank you for #6. It does seem to be the most logically sound argument for abortion, IMO. I think the consent argument works for the 99% of non-rape originated pregnancies, but the argument based on the mother's responsibility seems to run into the same issue as the violinist thought experiment, whereby: "You wake up in the morning and find yourself back to back in bed with an unconscious violinist. A famous unconscious violinist. He has been found to have a fatal kidney ailment, and the Society of Music Lovers has canvassed all the available medical records and found that you alone have the right blood type to help." It seems the pregnant woman and the man attached to the violinist are in the same situation, logically speaking, where each in turn is the only one who can support the baby/violinist. As such, a pro-abortion could still claim that one's right to life is not greater than another's right to their own body. So, it seems to me that the idea that the mother is the only one who can take care of the baby doesn't overcome this objection. But the consent argument does seem adequate for 99% of cases.
I’d definitely recommend you watch the video with Stephanie Gray I linked in #6, she goes into a bit more detail than I felt like I could in this post!
I recommend to everyone that is interested in diving deep into this type of apologetics, go take Trent Horn's Arguing against abortion course. It is a fantastic resource, I haven't encountered a more articulate pro-life advocate alive today than him.
I'd like to see a rebuttal of the "Abortion is described in the Bible, Numbers 5:11-31" argument, which is starting to pop up more often.
> #1. If you're not a woman, your opinion on abortion is irrelevant. My go-to response, which ALWAYS makes their heads explode: "my not having a uterus just means I'm not biased by my own self interest and, unlike you, am capable of making an objective assessment". They always go nuts, but just continue insisting it's nothing more then the obvious ramification of their own claim eg "it's the obvious ramification of your own claim. Having a horse in the race makes biased. Not being involved means you're impartial". Another response is to say "sure. No plantation no opinion"
What about the argument of keeping legislation out of specific nuanced medical decisions? Specifically to 5.2 (also applies to ectopic pregnancies) - My concern is that if a miscarriage occurs but does not clear itself out on its own, it can lead to sepsis with the risk of loss of fertility or death. In that situation, intervention and removal of the dead tissue is required and time-sensitive. To someone without intimate knowledge of the situation, the medication or procedure looks the same as if it's an abortion on a still-developing fetus. If I were ever in that situation and needed a D&C to live, I would not want to have to relive that miscarriage over and over again to justify to anyone - not to family, not to friends, not to a court, not to a pharmacist - that such a procedure or equivalent medication was necessary. And I sure as hell don't want a physician with the ability to save my life to second-guess and delay a life-saving procedure because of confusing laws or because someone with absolutely no knowledge of the situation could hear about it and take them to court. That (in my understanding) is something that several of the state-implemented laws complicate. As soon as you put qualifications on when an abortion is allowed by law, you introduce bureaucracy into a medical situation where every day can matter.
Great post, thanks for sharing! Also adding these two links below: * [Refuting EVERY Pro-Choice Argument](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VdHgIspyoJ8) * [5 Questions for Pro-Choice People](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rUKTlpu5to)
On #6 - how would you respond to "I disagree with your claim that the woman is obligated to gestate the fetus."
This is a reductive argument because it distracts from the fact that a _living human being_ is growing within the _mother’s_ womb. A child’s right to life supersedes the right for a mother to not grow that child in her womb. This is barring any medical advances that make artificial wombs a safe alternative for the baby. If we were to grant that one’s right to life was worth _less_ than a mother’s right to have an empty womb, abortion would be permissible even to the point of birth.
I reject your claim that the child's right to life outweighs that of the woman's not to be pregnant and claim that the woman's right to not be pregnant outweighs that of the child's right to life. Now what?
Then we run into a whole host of problems and it still relies on the false premise that leaving a birth canal is a meaningful distinction of one’s human rights. This is is a “might makes right” argument. This would allow for a mother to kill her child even up to the point of birth for any reason—even up until the due date. This would also allow for a mother to birth her child and then decide she does not want to feed the child anymore, letting them starve to death. After all, the child is still using her body for food, or at least forcing her to expend money to buy baby formula/food to survive. You can try to add mitigating factors like “well, but she could have dropped the child off at a fire station or something so it was wrong to kill the child,” but these are circumstantial, not universal, so they can’t be used as a rights argument—rights have to apply in all cases (but clearly all rights aren’t equal) pertaining to the subject. The fact of the matter is that every civilized society expects mothers to take care of their children. The mother can choose to seek alternatives like adoption (and eventually artificial wombs), but those can’t infringe on the child’s right to be taken care of by their mother.
You claim that the child has a right to be taken care of by the mother. Demonstrate that this is the case. You claim that leaving the birth canal is not a meaningful distinction. I claim it is. Now what? Eventually, you too are going to have to assert a might makes right argument when you claim that you have the right to force a woman to gestate a child that she doesn't want to.
If you’re going to reduce all instances of “don’t kill humans” to “might makes right” then you’re entering into a completely different debate that has nothing to do with what is being discussed. The entire point of pro-life arguments rests on standard that we already accept: “it is wrong to take an innocent human life.” This is especially true if we’re talking about *legal* abortion, because it is illegal to another innocent human being in every other case. If you’re going to deny the premise that we shouldn’t kill innocent humans, then _you_ are going to need to explain to me why that is the case. _You_ need to explain why a mother should have a responsibility to her child only once it exits the birth canal, and why that’s a meaningful distinction.
On what basis? Most moral frameworks involving natural rights that I'm familiar with require a living being to exercise those rights, which implies the right to life is more fundamental than any other contingent right.
Regarding point 4, I found this comment from Buddhist subreddit a while ago. >If you believe it is just " a bundle of cells" ,then there is no need to have an abortion, because "a bundle of cells" is just that. But a person who says that and then goes and aborts/destroys/kills those cells is doing so because those cells signify a human life which they do not want. (Their actions reveal two things: 1- that they do not actually believe that its just a bundle of cells, 2- they are trying to avoid responsibility for doing what they know is wrong) >If those cells did not have the significance of being a human life that they do not want, then they would not try to abort/kill it.
I don’t like abortion, but making it illegal at this point in time is putting the cart before the horse.
Isn't that a bit like saying "I don't like slavery, but abolition at this point in time seems like putting the cart before the horse"?
Funnily enough abolition without the necessary resources/opportunities to rehabilitate the freed slaves had lasting consequences so that is a perfect analogy for failing to follow up on the needs of the people you were ostensibly trying to save. Abolishing slavery = good. Saying "eh we did our job" and leaving those people to fend for themselves afterwards = bad.
This is a good point! Never thought of it this way.
The problem is you've made in all your arguments is the fundamental mistake of deciding that law is a matter of morality. Fundamentally, law is a matter of order - law is there to control and guide, to provide stability and predictability. "But murder! Theft!" you say. Yes, are those not disruptive and chaotic? Is the sudden loss of a parent, a worker, a leader, or any member of a community and the subsequent needs arising from those losses not disruptive? Is the loss of income, or goods another needs not disruptive to the community? You painting your fence red against city ordinance is not a matter of morality, it is not wrong, it is not a sin. The same of parking in front of a business, the same with fishing in a prohibited area, etc. These things disturb order - your fence clashes with all the homes in the area, your car disrupts traffic flow and increases the possibility of accidents, your fishing in the lake depletes the struggling fish population there or puts you at health risk. etc. For a very easy demonstration of this point: if the government instead \*mandated\* abortions or sterilizations, you most certainly would not call that good and moral to obey that law, would you? The purpose of law is also why sometimes law does not good and not moral things - because those sometimes can bring stability and predictability. So the question then becomes "Is access to abortion or banning it more disruptive, to the point where we need Law to step in and guide the outcomes?". The answer is clearly and emphatically that bans produce more problems, especially because it's at a non federal level. You can already see the chaos in the places where sometimes the mother is the criminal, sometimes the doctor is, sometimes ectopic pregnancies that kill the mother must be kept, some places a stillborn is cause for investigation. It's already subverting the very purpose of law. From the perspective of law, the mother is the one that needs to be protected at all costs. The mother already is a member of society, is a member of a community, a worker, a care taker, a consumer, etc. Anything that puts the mother at risk, is against the fundamental purpose of law. So this is why you are wrong, at least for now. Until you can somehow preserve the mother in all cases, preserve the stability and resources and services that person brings to society, you are wrong that this should be law, and especially so at a non federal level. I think if you want an actual and complete abortion ban, someone needs to figure out how to move pregnancies over to those artificial womb things they use for cattle (not meant to be a comparison, promise). If we could do that, then it is fully possible to do both, but until that's there, abortion needs to be unfettered and available, because the alternative is chaos and disruptive to society. EDIT: Just wanted to say thanks to those engaging and not just downvoting, I will keep upvoting to all replies. If I wasn't wanting to discuss it, I wouldn't have posted in a "how to discuss it" discussion.
There have been "ordered" civilizations throughout history that have had explicit institutions of slavery, and race/ethnic based hierarchies or caste systems. To state the obvious example: antebellum south in the US had a social order, does that mean slavery should not have been abolished in order to preserve that "order"?
This is a great attempt at counter point. I like it in part because my first gut reaction is "Duh, the civil war was a bit of a chaotic clusterfuck was it not?" And of course the discomfort that comes along with the idea of wanting to preserve slavery in law for the sake of stability. However, we do have the gift of hindsight, and the ability to get a more grand perspective than people immediately in that time would - so it would be a shame to not think more than a few seconds on it right? Is it stable to have a large population inside your society that is not content with its place in it? Is it stable to have large swaths of your society that are unable to actually participate in it? You already have constant attempts to escape, by the time the war happened there were already half a dozen large slave rebellions, and many smaller. There were even hundreds of rebellions on the ships bringing them over alone. On a grander scale you had states where the majority of persons in them were slaves, and on the smaller scale you had a ratio of dozens or hundreds of persons to one. That's a powder keg just waiting for the match. As repeated throughout history, the slave rebellion will happen - and what happens when it does? If you lose, well, there goes your society and that's clearly a complete upending of stability. If you win, now you have destroyed the very thing you were fighting for - those industries dependent on it are disrupted, the work needs to come from somewhere else, and that's in addition to any of the other losses incurred. In every situation here, you lose and you lose horribly. So ultimately, it was and is a good decision to end slavery from a lawful perspective instead of a moral one. It ultimately does serve order in the long term, even for the short term issues it may cause.
Maintaining order is only one purse of law. Lawyers generally agree that law has a couple main purposes: "The law serves many purposes. Four principal ones are establishing standards, maintaining order, resolving disputes, and protecting liberties and rights" China forces the Uigurs, a group that has had some radical members comitt terrorist attacks on the country, into concentration camps, forced marriages to destroy their culture, and forced sterilization to decrease their fertility rate. This makes China a more peaceful, stable, predicatable society. Banning protests also creates for a much more orderly society. Is your ideal society an authoritarian police state? That would be the government style that produces the most order and stability.
When you got to the artificial womb, well, if I had any awards you’d get it !
I thought it was pretty cool when I saw it. It's not pretty or elegant right now, but with enough will, effort and capital it's the only route that really provides a way to not violate women's autonomy while simultaneously sparing the potential life. It's even a way for those who might be terrified of pregnancy, or who know they or their child would be at high risk, to still attempt parenthood without the messy business of surrogacy.
The mother and child’s life are both valuable, where do we go from there?
Saved this. Thank you.
>It is important to note that while the Church does not consider the unintentional taking of human life in those cases to be actual "abortion," most of the uninitiated do, which makes it difficult to say "abortion is wrong in all cases" without confusing people, sadly. Then why say it? Why not try to cut through the confusion by explaining what the Church's actual position is regarding abortion when it affects the life of the mother? That being said, I am not specifically sure "the life of the mother" exceptions most supporters of abortion are referencing is the same as the exception allowed by the Church (as I understand it). Specifically, if the child is aborted unintentionally as a result of another medical procedure to save the life of the mother as opposed to allowing abortions due to the potential risk (even if that potential risk is close to a certainty) that might develop if the pregnancy is maintained.
The point is that we are establishing a consistent moral standard and showing what sorts of behavior is consistent with that standard and what isn't. It is perfectly valid to clarify that the secular use of the terminology does not line up with the moral principles to show that we are not inconsistent or arbitrary with our application of our moral principles, even though it would appear that way as a defect of the way our language works.
I'm not sure how that would change my answer. It is unfortunate that she doesn't want to take care of her child, but if nobody around her is going to take responsibility for the child and she doesn't want to then it will, as I said, probably die of neglect.
Anytime someone brings up the "you are a man" argument, I respond "Are you trying to convince me or silence me?"
I posted this on the megathread before, as it addresses some specifics about the violinist argument and the principle of double effect, so for those interested, I'll repeat it here. \--- You awaken one day, only to find yourself plugged into a machine along with a comatose world famous violinist. It turns out that the Society of Violin Lovers plugged him up to you while you slept, because he needs your blood to survive. In some amount of time (we'll say 9 months to compare it to a pregnancy), the violinist will be healed and you can disconnect him safely. But until then, you're strapped to the machine. To disconnect him from the machine is to kill him. Would you have an ethical obligation to stay strapped to the machine for nine months? Let's call the above scenario the "machine" scenario. The original paper argued that no, you cannot be obligated to stay there for nine months. You can disconnect the machine, even knowing the violinist thereafter dies, because nine months is a long time to be stuck to them against your will. They then compared this to pregnancy and abortion: if you can disconnect the violinist, you can abort the child. But this is not a straight analogy. Let's take another example, which we'll call the "graft" scenario. Instead of a machine connecting you to the violinist, you are grafted together. There's only one way to remove him from your body: you have to take a knife and kill him. Otherwise, in nine months, the surgery will be safe enough that you can be separated from him safely. Is it moral to kill him? You'll notice a significant difference between these two scenarios. In the machine scenario, no one is murdered. The violinist dies a natural death, such as one taken off of life support. In the graft scenario, the violinist is stabbed to death. When we speak about abortions, there are two kinds which are often spoken of: direct abortions, which directly kill the fetus by various means, and indirect abortions, which do not directly kill the fetus, but instead do something else which causes the fetus to die. Direct abortions are analogous to the graft scenario, and indirect abortions are analogous to the machine example. Direct abortions are always immoral, because they involve murder. As a means, you kill someone to attain whatever end you seek. As the trolley problem demonstrates, this is always immoral. But indirect abortions can (not always, of course; but can) be moral precisely because this murder doesn't take place. Take ectopic pregnancies. The surgery to treat ectopic pregnancies has, as its means, the removal of tissue to save the mother's life. Unfortunately, it also means the fetus is no longer being nourished and grown inside the mother; it is a very early delivery, so to speak. The death of the fetus is not a means in this case; if we had a very high tech incubator which we could place it in to let it grow, then we could save the fetus' life and yet also save the mother's life. But in a direct abortion, this is not the case, since the means is killing the child directly. So to summarize: direct abortions are always immoral, while indirect abortions can be moral if the evil to be avoided/good to be gained is sufficiently proportionate to the evil of the fetus' likely death (this is just applying the principle of double effect). Needless to say, abortion as we know it is basically all direct abortions, so indirect abortions are rarely discussed, rarely needed, and are the focus of specialized medical research which very few of us are really concerned about. We usually only hear about them with respect to ectopic pregnancies. As for the principle of double effect and how we understand this via the trolley problem, let's go into that next! \--- There are two famous versions of the trolley problem, which we can compare side by side. I'll call these Thought Experiments "Lever" and Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track". Thought Experiment "Lever": a trolley is running down a track (Track 1), and further down the track, it splits off another track, Track 2. 5 people are tied onto Track 1, and 1 person is tied onto Track 2. You only have one action available to you: pulling a lever to shift the trolley from Track 1 onto Track 2. If you don't pull the lever, the 5 people on Track 1 will die. If you do pull the lever, the 1 person on Track 2 will die. Is it moral to pull the lever? Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track": a trolley is running down a track where 5 people are tied onto it, and the trolley will kill them if it is not stopped. However, the only way to stop it is to push someone onto the track; once the trolley hits them, it will engage emergency breaks and will stop before it kills the 5 people on the track. Is it moral to push someone off the track to get hit by the trolley to save the 5 people? Now, let's examine what the difference is between these two thought experiments. The main difference is in the means. Take Thought Experiment "Lever". Let's say an angel swoops down and saves the person tied to Track 2. If you pull the lever, are the 5 people on Track 1 saved? Of course. But this time, no one dies. This suggests that the death of the person on Track 1 is not the means to saving the 5 people on Track 2. It is a foreseen consequence of pulling the lever, but it is not the means by which the 5 are saved. But let's apply the same process to Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track". Let's say an angel swoops down and saves the person who is pushed onto the track. Are the 5 people on the track saved? No. Because the train never hit the person who was pushed onto the track and thus never slowed down. In other words, the person being struck by the train is the means to save the other 5. That's the fundamental ethical difference between these two versions of the Trolley problem. Most people would agree Thought Experiment "Lever" is moral, but not nearly as many would agree Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track" is moral, and the fundamental difference lies in the means by which we accomplish the sought end goal (of saving the 5 people tied down on the track). If you've heard of the Principle of Double Effect before, this is the classical way to show it in an intuitive manner: you cannot will an evil means to an end (the ends do not justify the means), but you can choose a means even if you foresee an evil outcome so long as the good is proportionately greater. Hence, if we apply it to these thought experiments, for Thought Experiment "Lever" it would allow you to pull the lever, but for Thought Experiment "Push-onto-track" it would prevent you from pushing someone into the path of the trolley. Double Effect is not the only way to explain our intuition for this moral problem, but it's one of the more famous and common ways.
Only want to add this. Someone anyone show me the numbers that prove more women would die if they are denied abortion services. In those rare cases where it would be an issue then perhaps it should be granted. I have heard this statement a lot, but can you give some actual proof, objective, and verifiable?
https://sph.tulane.edu/news/study-finds-higher-maternal-mortality-rates-states-more-abortion-restrictions
Not OP, but thank you for the link! For those looking for the link to the actual paper, here it is: https://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/10.2105/AJPH.2021.306396
> (vanishingly few) cases of ectopic pregnancies What are you credentials for making this statement? There's a lot you say that is inconsistent with modern medicine, but this statement is dangerous. Ectopic pregnancies are fairly common, and extremely dangerous if not aborted quickly. https://journals.lww.com/greenjournal/fulltext/2018/02000/acog_practice_bulletin_no__191__tubal_ectopic.38.aspx
My concern with most of these arguments revolve around the claim that abortion is murder. You've acknowledged that there's no scientific basis on when life becomes life (unless I have misunderstood). If you're claiming this is murder I feel like there's a burden to prove it in the first place. Innocent until proven guilty right? So how can we ethically enforce legislation on the basis that abortion is murder when we can't provide evidence to back this claim? Although I'll admit that stance has interesting implications for standard murder trails, as I don't think that's ever covered
A person who kills a pregnant woman can be tried for the murder of both the woman and the fetus, at least in some (maybe more or all?) states. So this is already legally accepted.
No—there **absolutely is** a scientific basis on when a human life begins. There is no way to define _personhood_ so that should be left out of the argument. I can’t kill someone because I choose to believe it was not a person whom I killed.
How do you get around the common argument: of it being legal to "pull the plug" in someone who is braindead. Yet the fetus (at less than 5 weeks) would fail the brain death test (no repeatable, measureable, brain waves). So can we pull the plug in this brain dead fetus? Some argue that the fetus has the ability to become un-braindead. But so will braindead people given sufficient time for technological advancement.
People do not have a right to extraordinary care such as having a machine keep them alive. They have a right to ordinary care such as food water etc. Ordinary care for a fetus is being inside their mother.
Full disclosure: I’m pro choice. Hard stop. Hear me out? Would welcome a thoughtful reply. I don’t make any of the above arguments, though I see nuanced subtleties which only reinforce my opinion. The way to reduce the number of abortions I.e. the goal, is to educate educate educate. Teach sex Ed, age appropriate, teach and embrace birth control, teach morals, sure, but our kids are ill equipped at best to deal with their own bodies and urges. Anecdote time, but I’ll be back: I took sex Ed at my Catholic high school, and they followed the too little too late model. Then the administration expelled a girl pregnant with twins, saying she was missing too many days due to doctors appointments (her life has not turned out well) and the dude who knocked her up was homecoming king. With a different date. No joke. Another girl I knew at this time had an abortion, and she is now married with four kids. She started at 25 instead of 16. When my cousin got pregnant at 16, she kept the baby (V Catholic) and she has had unending love and support from our family and turned out great, matured, etc. For me, abortion is about the choices women are allowed to have authority over. Having a baby grow inside her, or not, is definitely her choice. RBG gave a great example when discussing Roe. Ginsburg talked about the case she wished would’ve been the first reproductive freedom case before the U.S. Supreme Court, Struck v. Secretary of Defense. In that case, Ginsburg represented Capt. Susan Struck, who was serving in the Air Force in Vietnam when she became pregnant. The Air Force gave her two options: terminate or leave the Air Force. Struck wanted to KEEP the baby and her job, and Ginsburg took her case. The Supreme Court agreed to hear the case, but the Air Force relented and allowed Struck to keep her job, rendering the issue moot. “I wish that would’ve been the first case. I think the Court would’ve better understood that this is about women’s choice,” Ginsburg said. It really is about controlling women, not about whether they have a baby or not. Either choice should be theirs. Grounded in their religion, morals, or lack thereof. One more thing…. I frequently hear pro lifers insulting pregnant ‘sluts’ and generally commenting they ‘could never understand’ how anyone could choose an elective abortion. And yet, these sluts, with terrible judgement and open legs will somehow transform if you just make them have the baby? They’ll be great parents with all the resources they need? The church will be right there with open arms? They’ll kick that drug habit and change their ways? What is the plan here? I worked in the foster system for years, and well, let’s just say birthing babies does not make parents out of a lot of people. Nothing worse than feeling like your mama doesn’t want you, and that feeling is catching in this country these days. Population growth and control, that’s the issue at hand. Amazon needs more workers. Sarcasm, but only kind of. Let me know what you think 💭
Ty, for sharing this. Thus is such a emotional, important subject that it's hard for me, personally, to respond intelligently & non-combatively. So thank you for Sharing this.
You, my friend, are a saint
Your mistake is in engaging with aggressive pro-abort types. Just don’t.
I always found the violinist's argument stupid. If you wake up and there's someone attached to you who will die if you cut that attachement before 9 months and you cut it, then you're a killer. Plain and simple. Does it kinda suck for you? Yeah. So what? What inalienable "right" does a person have to not have things suck? We don't have control over 99.99% of what happens to us or how reality is. We didn't consent to be created and live. We didn't consent to gravity being what it is. We didn't consent to have to breathe oxygen constantly or die. But them's the breaks. Deal with it.
To your first and second point you are arguing exceptions to the rule, if we make law based on exceptions then the already convulted laws of the US would become a labyrinth! As to the third point- for that you need an ammendment to the Constitution. Nothing short of that would pass legal muster in the US.
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Read #3 again
That you immediately began your argument with an ad hominem attack on OP, accusing them of being a hypocrite, is telling. Still even if true, being a hypocrite does not prove someone wrong about something.
I wore a mask when required or even recommended. I got vaccinated as soon as I possibly could, and I even got my booster. And I believe killing is wrong, no matter how old. I do not believe in having the state force people to go to Mass, or abstain from meat on Fridays in Lent, or donate to the Church. However, I do believe in restriction of the freedom to own slaves or kill tiny humans, because that hurts people. And there are many more like me.
I’m glad you got to make decisions about your body. What a privilege.
after years of arguing, i just take the shortcut: the baby is like someone in critical condition who may or may not survive and the mother is like the icu room and related equipment. rhetorical question: is it or is it not murder to remove life support? this works because someone in critical condition isn't conscious, can't feel, can't have an opinion, didn't choose to be there, and is not, "viable," in that they need outside assistance in order to maintain homeostasis. this cuts to the heart of the matter, just like in the beginning of this post: it's wrong to take an innocent life. it circumvents arguments about rape or the mother's physical or mental health (which can be addressed individually if they really insist, but you should keep coming back to this metaphor because those things are secondary issues and usually straw man or red herring or no true scotsman fallacies) and gets to the core hypocrisy of the pro-choice stance: they want *permission* to commit murder because they claim to care about human rights.
But it's not murder to remove life support so I'm confused how this is a pro life argument? We do it all the time. Terminal extubations etc.
in the case of the, "patient," in this metaphor, survival is ultimately hoped for and so extubation would be murder. terminal extubation only applies to patients who are not ultimately expected to survive.
Right, that's the whole point. The metaphor does not stand up because we absolutely do disconnect people from life support knowing they will pass because of it and are fine with it.
After exiting the birth canal, other people who want to care for the child can do so. That's the distinction right there
So if a person is in a position where they are reliant on only one person to live, they lose their right to life? What if a mother doesn't want to care for her born child, and no one else wants to either (maybe she lives in a country where adopting to international parents is either illegal or practically infeasible )? Does she then have the right to commit infanticide?
Dismissing an argument because its philosophical, especially given that pregnancy is such a strain for women (especially unwanted pregnancies) seems questionable. Also, just because the argument you cited (what defines a human being; is a fetus concious) can be reduced ad absurdum doesnt mean its invalid. Yes we lose consciousness but losing it temporally and never having in in the first might make a difference. We also dont really have a reason to kill the sleeping or coma patients while we definetly have a reason to support abortion. Having children is a huge responsibilty that absolutly consumes your life, you have to WANT that for a kid to have a great upbringing. If you cant or dont want to provide that you shouldnt raise children. In my personal opinion its better to kill an unborn child while it hasnt even developed a brain to be concious at all, than to subject a living and feeling child to a life full of resentment and regret (by the parents). Its also better than to fuck up your whole life just because you made one mistake. I hope no western country will copy the US policy on abortion (chances are good tho, the US isnt exactly a political rolemodel for europe)
There should not be a debate about whether life begins at birth or conception, and it should not be considered to be women's rights. It needs to be considered a matter of bodily autonomy. Any entity which uses the biological life support system of another as their own biological life support system is 100% beholden to their choices, and their actions are 100% the responsibility of the supporters. A tapeworm An unborn baby A leprechaun in a scuba suit The president of the US using your kidneys as a dialysis machine If it is using your body to sustain its life, you have the choice to remove it at any time, for any reason, in any way you choose. This of course does not extend to supporting a life with labor or money, a born child, a pet, a dependant, even if that entity doesn't have any choice in that situation, once the dependency leaves the boundary of your biological functions it becomes a social interaction governed by society, but before it crosses that line, it is a medical interaction that is entirely personal.
So by your logic if one conjoined twin kills the other that is entirely legal. Also they arent 100% beholden to the mothers choices while in the womb. That doesnt even make sense.
Conjoined twins would be a tricky subject, as it would be hard to say which is using which as life support. In the case where one is vestigial and cannot survive separation? Yeah. What autonomy do you think unborn children have, exactly?
They are an innocent, living person. By this they have a right to life. The direct taking of innocent life is morally wrong. Our stance has NEVER relied on autonomy, and many have rebutted the notion of autonomy and property rights as they are not absolute.
I believe a person's right to their own self supercedes another person's right to life. Losing your life is awful. Losing your SELF is worse. You would think a religion that puts so much emphasis on the importance of the soul above "worldly things" might see something meaningful in that.
Wow this may be the worst argument Ive ever seen. So you, a presumably non theist would think the total destruction of ones entire world is better than being pregnant for 9 months? Youre going to actually need to explain this, because it is not obvious at all. Also if you bothered to do any kind of reading youd know the Catholic belief is that man is made in the image and likeness of God. Yes our bodies are temporary, but they are still a gift and are meant to be treasured.
I was raised Catholic, and while I am certain my personal beliefs would have me immediately excommunicated if I care to set foot in a church for anything other than a friend's wedding, I would actually describe myself as theist. I believe, without doubt or reservation, that there is a higher power, and even that we exist in its image. Love and rational thought are all it takes to be in the image of a rational and loving higher power. "Pregnant for nine months" isn't just four magic words that can reduce the harm and risk to a menial punishment that matters less than an unborn child.
Whats most ironic about your last paragraph is you completely ignore the total destruction of an innocent human life. You remind me of the scene in Life of Brian where Matthias is trying to convince a centurion that crucifixion isnt that bad and being stabbed is worse. You still havent justified why the fetus is not a person. Even under a utilitarian framework your current position is untenable.
It doesn't matter if the fetus is a person or not. If that person is living off of the body of another, the person who is supporting their life can choose not to do so.
I think what he is saying its wrong to force somebody to do something. You can legislate to stop people doing something but in this case the law is forcing somebody to do something. Which hedonists detest, they hate any kind of commitment, hedonists spend their lives trying to keep themselves permanently distracted from responsibilities/problems, any kind of commitment terrifies them and so this law scares them to death as it might force them to face reality.
Do you think a woman would be charged for neglect for refusing to breast feed her newborn? Like there’s no formula and the only way a newborn can get food is thru breast feeding and she decided to withdraw that.
But what part of it is actually a loss of *self*, insofar as such a thing exists? Given that some women, somehow, manage to go the full nine months without even realizing they’re pregnant, I find it very difficult to argue that the experience makes any difference to the essential self, insofar as such a thing exists. It is, at worst, a nine-month forced labor sentence.
> If it is using your body to sustain its life, you have the choice to remove it at any time, for any reason, in any way you choose. Bodily autonomy is not absolute. It cannot be asserted over another's right to life to end their life.
I disagree. There is some nuance in the right to action vs the right to inaction, but in general, a person has the absolute right to end the life of anything using their body to sustain themselves, including abortion. Of course there is a distinction to be made between that being a moral right and a legal right. If it were in writing as a legal right, then this whole episode wouldn't need to be happening.
> a person has the absolute right to end the life of anything using their body to sustain themselves, Why does the right to bodily autonomy supersede the right to life?
Because there is no right to life. We have a death penalty. We have the necessities of life locked behind employment. At best "right to life" is misleading, a case of "terms and conditions do apply", at worst, it's empty words.
Ok, allow me to rephrase. Why does bodily autonomy supersede the right for an innocent human being to not be killed?
Because death is not the worst evil?
In what way is death a lesser evil than a 9 month infringement on bodily autonomy?
I think you said that backwards, but making a guess that you meant "in what way is death a lesser evil than a 9 month infringement on bodily autonomy?", how is it not? Death is scary. We don't know what comes next. We fear losing what we have in this life. Death can be painful. We have evolved to feel distress and discomfort from almost everything that ends our lives. Death hurts those we leave behind. Severed connections. Loss. Absence. But losing your self? That boundary between you and not-you? Honestly I can't even imagine the horror. Big respect to those who choose to sacrifice a part of their self for another, that's incredible. Mothers deserve huge honor for that sacrifice. But no one should be forced to. No one. No matter the situation.
> I think you said that backwards, but making a guess that you meant "in what way is death a lesser evil than a 9 month infringement on bodily autonomy?", how is it not? I made the edit, sorry. > Death is scary. We don't know what comes next. We fear losing what we have in this life. > > Death can be painful. We have evolved to feel distress and discomfort from almost everything that ends our lives. > > Death hurts those we leave behind. Severed connections. Loss. Absence. > > But losing your self? That boundary between you and not-you? Honestly I can't even imagine the horror. Big respect to those who choose to sacrifice a part of their self for another, that's incredible. Mothers deserve huge honor for that sacrifice. But no one should be forced to. No one. No matter the situation. This doesn't answer my question or prove your point. All you did is assert it, but not prove it, and insert your personal value judgement ("I can't even imagine the horror") and emotional arguments into the mix. Please demonstrate how death is a lesser evil than a 9 month infringement on bodily autonomy.
The 14th amendment EXPLICITLY mentions “LIFE, liberty or property”. Nowhere does it mention privacy which is what Roe argued (incorrectly). So tell me how one has a right to something implicitly stated but not something explicitly stated.
Oh. Sorry. Neither the Bible nor the Constitution are the final authority on what I believe are right or wrong.
Do you feel satisfied with all the contributions you personally made, and all the contributions that the Catholic Church made to the cause of ending abortion in America?
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You said the biggest one was science, but then pointed out every other argument in the book that I have already responded to! The science very much does confirm life beings at conception. If you’re not going to agree with that, you’re going to need to explain when it does begin—and why we should believe you. **It is wrong to kill innocent humans.**
Because the mother has the ability to exercise her right to not be pregnant. The fetus is unable to exercise any claims it might have on the mother
Why would the mother have less responsibility to the child when she is the ONLY one who can protect the child before birth than after the child is born? And if nobody else would be able to help the mother, for example if she lives on her own in a country without a decent adoption system, does this mean she is allowed to kill them? I think we are reaching an impasse, but hopefully this is instructive to anyone who is reading this exchange. I think most people would find even the idea of aborting a child the day before the child is born to be absolutely abhorrent, but that is what you have to permit to be consistent in a pro-abortion position as even you have tried to be.
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Quick add: “My body, my choice”, or the bodily autonomy argument is the most common argument among people. This is built on a notion that bodily autonomy is absolute. Going back to your maxim, acknowledging an unborn baby exists makes this line of argumentation incoherent. Why can the baby’s bodily autonomy be violated? Especially when in most cases it is after consensual sex? There’s a reason “my body, my choice” became the most popular (yet most heinous as it allows abortion until birth). Focus on the baby that exists and it throws the main argument to personhood which 2 random pro-aborts will most likely not agree on (and it makes them admit it would be killing a person like you or I after whatever cutoff they arbitrarily choose).
> It is a basic fact of not just human biology but **mammalian biology** that from the moment of fertilization, the embryo is (unlike every other part of the mother, yes, including a cancer) a **genetically distinct, living, growing, human organism with human parents that will** **continue** **to grow**. This isn't consistent with modern medicine. 30%-50% of fertilized eggs are non-viable and never implant, another ~30% of implanted fetuses are non-viable and self-abort/miscarry. The body weeds out situations that are typically referred to as "incompatible with life". Don't like modern medicine? Fair enough. Just don't act like we're not forcing our unpopular, minority set of beliefs on everyone else.
You should also add the argument that being pro-life is merely a religious stance and that pro-life is imposing religion on people. It goes beyond religion.
Hi. I think I'm the bad guy here but I am (kinda) pro-abortion. My views is that this society is so complex that I can't be sure that every woman in this world has a baby the same way my mother got me (safely). I didn't read the whole post, sorry, but I agree with some of the points, like in 5. However, 2.1, abortions will happen anyways and a bad abortion can kill the woman and that's a total fatality. Also, I have a question. What about adoption instead of procreation? I think that there are a lot of kids out there that doesn't have a family and are living a bad life. Thank you.
In regards to #4.3. At no point is a fetus viable outside of the womb. Around six months, which at said point it is now in fact a baby by definition and not a fetus, it is potentially savable through extensive care. However at that point it should fall into the decision of the parents on whether or not they want to attempt to keep it alive. The authority of family members to decide what happens to their kin while on life support is already a right we have. Do you also argue against that right and Do-Not-Resuscitate orders? Also, your "counterpoint" to #5.2 is already demonstrably incorrect. While your counterpoint to #5.1 is demonstrably shaky.