# A Very Long Analysis of the Arguments Related to the Abortion Debate **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 4, 2019, 6:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527 "2019-07-04T18:01:47Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 17
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 12:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/321 "2019-07-10T00:21:18Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Heh, reminds me of a previous abortion megathread (I’m sure you were there) in which one hypothetical being bandied about was “you are in a spaceship, supplies are sharply limited, and you discover a stowaway. Out the airlock?” > > I maintained yes if the captain (who is in charge of the spaceship and the only person normally aboard) chooses, given the hypothetical implies genuine risk, (i.e. if the stowaway is allowed to stay, it’s possible the captain _and_ the stowaway die because of limited resources), and the isolation means there is no way the stowaway can be safely transferred off. Interesting. Consider two cases: 1. You’re on your spaceship, you have enough supplies to get you to your destination 9 months away. You discover a sick stowaway. If you stretch supplies and spend hours each day caring for the stowaway, you can probably make it to your destination with the stowaway, but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable along the way. 2. You’re on your spaceship, with a family you invited, with enough supplies to get all y’all to your destination 9 months away. Boom! Meteor strike! Ship’s damaged, only one kid survives (injured). If you stretch supplies and spend hours each day caring for the orphan, you can probably make it to your destination with the kid, but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable along the way. You’re good with kicking the stowaway out. What about the orphan? If your answer changes, what’s changing it? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 12:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/322 "2019-07-10T00:43:33Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > You’re good with kicking the stowaway out. What about the orphan? If your answer changes, what’s changing it? I’m tempted to say the captain accepted a duty to protect his passengers when he agreed to transport them, though I admit I don’t actually know for certain if there is relevant contemporary maritime law for situations like this. Possibly the passengers knowingly accepted an assumption of risk when they booked the voyage, including submitting to the life-or-death authority of the captain in sufficiently dire circumstances. If they were travelling in the captain’s _body_, as opposed to in his ship, I would fully recognize his authority to “space” them, but if I may ask for a clarification regarding your hypotheticals, when you say “you can probably make it to your destination … but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable”, does this mean discomfort is guaranteed\* and\* there is a risk of death? If so, then I can imagine the captain spacing his passenger (either one) but having to later affirmatively defend that decision, as he would for self-defense or necessity. I predict a court of inquiry would want better evidence of the life-or-death risk in the case with orphan over that of the stowaway. I don’t want to seem evasive. I hope that response is satisfactory. Afterthought: to cut to the chase, I support the captain’s right to choose, though I might not agree the decision was justified. ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 12:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/323 "2019-07-10T00:45:55Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m tempted to say the captain accepted a duty to protect his passengers when he agreed to transport them, though I admit I don’t actually know for certain if there is relevant contemporary maritime law for situations like this. Possibly the passengers knowingly accepted an assumption of risk when they booked the voyage, including submitting to the life-or-death authority of the captain in sufficiently dire circumstances. > > If they were travelling in the captain’s _body_, as opposed to in his ship, I would fully recognize his authority to “space” them, but if I may ask for a clarification regarding your hypotheticals, when you say “you can probably make it to your destination … but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable”, does this mean discomfort is guaranteed\* and\* there is a risk of death? If so, then I can imagine the captain spacing his passenger (either one) but having to later affirmatively defend that decision, as he would for self-defense or necessity. > > I predict a court of inquiry would want better evidence of the life-or-death risk in the case with orphan over that of the stowaway. > > I don’t want to seem evasive. I hope that response is satisfactory. Consider the risks and discomfort to be similar to those involved in yer average pregnancy. And yeah, the analogy is still teetering on the difference between property and body. I put in the bit about requiring hours of aid every day to try to get some bodily autonomy involved–but I recognize that as a dude who’s never grown someone inside me, I’m not a good arbiter of any similarity between nursing someone to health and growing them on my insides. For me, I’m pretty uncomfortable with the captain spacing the orphan. But, and this is important, if it’s just a 19-week-old fetus in a jar that’s using up tremendous resources, I’m 100% cool with the captain spacing the fetus, no discomfort at all. ---
**Author:** ![SamuelA](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/c77e96/32.png) [@SamuelA](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SamuelA)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/324 "2019-07-10T00:47:11Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Interesting. Consider two cases: > > 1. You’re on your spaceship, you have enough supplies to get you to your destination 9 months away. You discover a sick stowaway. If you stretch supplies and spend hours each day caring for the stowaway, you can probably make it to your destination with the stowaway, but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable along the way. > 2. You’re on your spaceship, with a family you invited, with enough supplies to get all y’all to your destination 9 months away. Boom! Meteor strike! Ship’s damaged, only one kid survives (injured). If you stretch supplies and spend hours each day caring for the orphan, you can probably make it to your destination with the kid, but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable along the way. > > You’re good with kicking the stowaway out. What about the orphan? If your answer changes, what’s changing it? Well, the sick stowaway and the orphan are both people, by the various definitions bandied about these thread. These are kids at least 5 years old or so, pretty much everyone in this thread agrees they are people. So it sort of is a different scenario. In the stowaway case, you may be legally justified in killing the stowaway by the space flag you fly under. Or at least not sharing your supplies with them, which is the same thing. In the orphan case, the invitation you made earlier means that your space jurisdiction likely makes the crime murder. And a third permutation comes in if you _don’t_ have enough supplies for both. And or may even need to cannibalize the stowaway/orphan. This has been famously dealt with in trials, as I recall the eventual survivor was punished but only lightly. It’s this case: the court decided the cannibal sailors were guilty of murder but were given 6 month’s imprisonment as a punishment rather than the death penalty. > **[R v Dudley and Stephens](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R_v_Dudley_and_Stephens)** > > R v Dudley and Stephens (1884) 14 QBD 273, DC is a leading English criminal case which established a precedent throughout the common law world that necessity is not a defence to a charge of murder. The case concerned survival cannibalism following a shipwreck, and its purported justification on the basis of a custom of the sea. > The four-man crew of the wrecked yacht Mignonette were cast adrift in a small lifeboat without provisions. After nearly three weeks at sea, and with little hope of re... ---
**Author:** ![Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/left_hand_of_dorkness/32/7156_2.png) [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Left_Hand_of_Dorkness)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 12:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/325 "2019-07-10T00:50:41Z")
Ooh, cannibalism. Thanks for making the analogy relevant. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 1:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/326 "2019-07-10T01:11:47Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Consider the risks and discomfort to be similar to those involved in yer average pregnancy. It’s worth pointing out, though, that pregnancy is a lot less risky now than 100 years ago and not because humans have changed but because of modern medical technology, and that’s just in the post-industrial countries, of which the United States has arguably the worst or certainly among the worst [maternal mortality rate.](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_maternal_mortality_rate) Most of the African nations have mortality rates _now_ that are comparable to what Finland (the modern leader) had in 1900. I’m not trying to quibble with the hypothetical, but there’s a big range in risk levels for “yer average pregnancy” depending on where you live. I can assume you meant the spaceship captain faced a low-level risk comparable to, say, an average pregnant woman in modern Poland, i.e. 3 per 100,000, in which case proportionality suggests the captain has a duty to take that risk for his passenger. An average Nigerian woman’s risk of 814 per 100,000 is far worse, but still under 1% so… I’m okay with duty winning out. I seem to recall, or perhaps am just favourably remembering, that the original thread’s use of the analogy suggested space travel was _very_ dangerous, and just making a voyage under best-available conditions was already considered pretty risky. Also, your spaceship was the only one you would ever have, so if it got permanently damaged, too bad. The aggravating factor of a stowaway, especially a stowaway that was going to eventually consume 25% or more of the ship’s resources and interfere with many of its functions, was clearly to _me_ representing a serious situation, but I recall that when convenient, pro-lifers would shrug this off like it was no more an imposition than giving somebody a lift to the train station. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/327 "2019-07-10T01:31:20Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > It would seem posters have been trying to tell you that line of argument is irrelevant. **Velocity** thinks the only major rationale behind pro-life is religious. You haven’t attempted to address or examine the religious aspect of this debate (although **QuickSilver** dabbled in [POST=21733707]post #36[/POST]). I think I addressed this since this post was first up. > [@](#): > > **Icerigger** , **iiandyiiii** , **Esprise Me** , **RitterSport** , **elbows** , and **DigitalC** said personhood was irrelevant because the mother’s bodily autonomy supersedes the fetus’s right to life even if it had personhood. I think **thorny locust** holds that opinion too. I think **Bryan Ekers** takes a similar view, but I’m having trouble reading him - either way he says personhood is irrelevant. I think i’ve addresses this. I’ve Challenged this notion under the grounds that killing stowaways, and trespassers is generally considered unacceptable. A special case for body autonomy doesn’t hold water as society restricts body autonomy for lesser consequences than the killing of another person. I reject your viewpoint (though it helps my argument that body autonomous is given up by having sex because pregnancy is “the purpose” of sex. I do this because sex has multiple purposes besides generating pregnancy, and also because medicine can and does fix common undesired consequences that are an unwanted result of actions. > [@](#): > > **Ulfreida** seems to take a utilitarian perspective, if the mother can’t support the baby it might be better to let her abort it and prevent potential suffering of the mother and the baby. Some doctors at memorial hospital took this attitude and euthanized patients without their consent. Society doesn’t allow you to kill yourself if you decide life sucks. Letting somebody else make the decision for you seems like a pretty bad idea. > [@](#): > > **You** , **QuickSilver** , **AHunter3** , **Delayed Reflex** and **I** seem to agree with the conclusions from your OP (that human life is not “sacred”, and abortion is pragmatic). I guess a pro life person would go to town us for this. I.E. if human life is not “sacred” and we can kill because pregnancy is inconvenient, than we can kill for basically any reason. This lack of respect for the human condition leads to a downfall of human values, and weakens if not ultimately destroys our societies. If you read the actual letters of the founders they seemed pretty firm about our constitution being designed for a society founded in religious morals, and we would fall apart them. How can we disrespect human life so much that we allow abortion yet feign compassion for immigrants, the poor? how can we justify welfare and aid to make people more comfortable? If we are killing unborn persons because carrying them to term is inconvenient why not just kill all the other people whose existence poses a burden? Etc. My first response to this is “hmmmm. Good point.” My more careful thoughtful response is that to make society work we have to pretend that human life is sacred and pay general lip service so people just don’t killing everybody who needs some form of assistance, unborn babies can’t advocate for themselves, and if their mother’s won’t and appear recalcitrant about offering both pre and post natal care, than we can safely just ignore them, without appearing to ignore our stated values. > [@](#): > > **l0k1** didn’t express an opinion but said you were fighting a strawman (“the null hypothesis is the wrong one”) Straw men do indeed have cause to fear me. > [@](#): > > I think **The Left Hand of Dorkness** favors a sort of contract or anti-consent theory, the woman didn’t invite the fetus so the fetus has no right to stay, He seems at least partially interested in wether or not a fetus is a person, and does not seem generally in favor of killing trespassers, so I think it’s more complex than that. > [@](#): > > I might have misread people’s positions, after all I am relatively new here. But it doesn’t seem that anybody except you brought up the position that the fetus can be aborted because it is not a person.\* Yes. Most abortion debates focus on the development or potential personhood of the fetus. Generally speaking, the fetus’ status is typically pretty Germaine. Nobody reasonable would have a problem terminating a foreign parasite without any present or possible human characteristics. Implicit in any abortion argument is the question of the rights of the fetus which are dependent upon it’s personhood or lack thereof. As I said in my OP, I think it’s something every pro choice argument must address. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 1:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/328 "2019-07-10T01:48:59Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > To get back on topic, I think the rest of [POST=21740652]post #268[/POST] is a good representation of the pro-choice arguments. Since the majority of thread participants describe themselves as pro-choice, perhaps it would do you well in your quest for knowledge to start your analysis anew from the vantage point of a pro-life person, in response to the pro-choice arguments. Done. > [@](#): > > The **Left Hand of Dorkness** laid out a nice order of arguments in [POST=21740675]post #271[/POST]. I believe he and I have been having an interesting conversation and I am pretty sure that I have a feeling for his position. I disagree with it, as it appears to reject the validity of time value (or, upon preview value it less than I do.) > [@](#): > > I personally can’t find a way to defend the pro-life position once we move into religion, because I am not myself religious. I think the pro-life position is logically consistent if we _assume_ a number of religious tenets. **Left Hand of Dorkness** and **Bryan Elkers** say it’s not so, and we’re having a lovely discussion of that point if you would like to jump in. Perhaps when I catch up. Generally speaking, I think that all moral and ethical arguments wind up being religious arguments, as the entirety of western civilization is built an amalgam of judeo/Christian morality and Greek reason. > [@](#): > > Be that as it may, a good number of us here are agreed that pro-life holds no water without religion. Unless you or someone else is willing to defend that aspect of the pro-life movement, down to the dearest axioms, we can’t truly have or analyze that debate Nope. Not me. I don’t think you can get beyond a tribal enlightened self interest without religion, so I think basically all of our morality holds no water without religion. Morality without religion is “game theory” which gets exceptionally brutal even at its highest levels. So, the argument that the pro life stance is invalid because it is based on religious values holds no water. Discount it on those grounds and you have to throw out a lot of other stuff, too. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 2:05am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/329 "2019-07-10T02:05:06Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Without in any way stipulating that this is a good analogy, I’d say that Steve needs to restore Fred to the point that Fred was at when Fred became able to intervene. > > Let’s say that the machine takes ten hours to complete. Fred starts it at 8 am and plans to come back at 6 to a finished DVD player. When he comes back, he finds no DVD player. Steve owes him what he actually expected at that point. But let’s say that Fred starts it at 8 am, and checks in on it at 1 pm, to find it destroyed. Steve owes him a half-finished DVD player. Ok. Thank you for replying and I accept your earlier stipulation concerning the analogy and recognize that it will not automatically produce results applicable to the debate. So, there are no gotchas here, nor will any be forthcoming. This is an interesting reply. What I think Fred was expecting was a log on its way to becoming a DVD player, NOT half a DVD player. There really is no such thing as a partial DVD player. It’s pretty much an all or nine proposition. Right? What I think you are saying is that Fred could start again with another log at whatever time he walks in, so Steve owes Fred for the log and the lost time. I’m pretty sure that’s what you mean but would like to ask. > [@](#): > > People plan their lives, and fucking with their plans can cause them actual damage in the future. Because they, y’know, **exist**. > > A fetus doesn’t have a plan for its life, so you can’t fuck with those plans, so you can’t cause them actual damage. Because they, as persons, **do not exist**. Another problem with the analogy is that you can’t argue that the DVD player has agency. Whereas one could argue a fetus depending on what personhood value they assign to it. It’s outside the analogy but I don’t see what planning has to do with it. One doesn’t need plans to be damaged. Removing options causes damages, no plans needed. Thanks for the reply. ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 2:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/330 "2019-07-10T02:27:29Z")
> [@Left\_Hand\_of\_Dorkness](#): > > Interesting. Consider two cases: > > 1. You’re on your spaceship, you have enough supplies to get you to your destination 9 months away. You discover a sick stowaway. If you stretch supplies and spend hours each day caring for the stowaway, you can probably make it to your destination with the stowaway, but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable along the way. > 2. You’re on your spaceship, with a family you invited, with enough supplies to get all y’all to your destination 9 months away. Boom! Meteor strike! Ship’s damaged, only one kid survives (injured). If you stretch supplies and spend hours each day caring for the orphan, you can probably make it to your destination with the kid, but it’s gonna be real uncomfortable along the way. > > You’re good with kicking the stowaway out. What about the orphan? If your answer changes, what’s changing it? In both cases, I take the path of discomfort and take care of the person. I don’t throw anybody out the airlock. I have a bunch of reasons. 1. A great book called Deep Survival makes a very strong cases that your odds for survival in any tough situation go waaaay up if you have somebody else to take care of. 2. I think it’s wrong not to help people in your environment if you are able to do so. 3. Throwing someone out the airlock ends my options. I can always take care of the person now and toss them later, so taking care of them is a good default stance. 4. I feel that my life only has meaning to the extent that I am helping others. It makes me feel good for the long term to be valued and valuable. When I behave selfishly the short term satisfaction it provides is usually replaced by the feeling that I am a piece of shit. 5. I choose to aspire to be a hero, and tell myself to make the heroic choice so that maybe I can be what I aspire to be. 6. In similar circumstances I hope somebody would make the same choice for me or mine. 7. I’ve been badly burned, and suffered a lot of intense pain because of it. It happened when I was young and was a foundational experience. I run ultramarathons, take ice baths and do other weird things to maintain my relationship with pain. I do this not because I am a masochist but because there is great value in pain tolerance. It trains you to separate your mind from your body, master yourself, and generally makes pain, discomfort and petty annoyances meaningless. The whole point of BUDS training is basically to teach the Seal Candidates. That they can make their body do whatever they want it to and just because it bitches at you doesn’t mean you have to listen to it. AnywY, once I get used to some form of suffering, it stops being suffering and just becomes another thing. I’d be like “cool. Here is a new way to suffer.” ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/331 "2019-07-10T03:43:02Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Who is making this admission, and to whom, under what circumstances? Are you suggesting legislation compelling an abortion clinic to ask if contraception was used and to refuse service if so? The people who had sex didn’t use contraception, and they aren’t claiming to have used contraception. They went to their doctor and said, we had sex, she’s pregnant, but we don’t want to have a baby or deal with pregnancy, can you make it go away? The doctor asks, did you use contraception? No. So you had unprotected sex during ovulation? Yeah. [DEL]This isn’t a question about medical ethics. Medical ethics says follow the law[/DEL]. This isn’t a question about existing law, either. This is a question about morality. I say, assuming the fetus is a person, they don’t have the moral right to get an abortion unless the mother’s life or health is in actual danger, and the state of pregnancy alone does not qualify. I would like to know why you disagree, assuming the fetus is a person (has the right to live). > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Nope! The state has decided parents have a duty to provide organs to their children as necessary. They don’t care in the least about the circumstances of conception - if you’re the biological parent and transplantation is possible, you either give up a kidney or go to jail. Acceptable? It would depend on the circumstances. If I was raped and had one kidney you bet I would take jail time and sue the government for violating my constitutional rights (it’s got to be in there somewhere, probably Eighth Amendment). If I wasn’t raped but had one kidney and didn’t expect the kid to need this operation, I would still take jail time and sue the government. If I had two kidneys, but wasn’t raped, I would probably give my kidney regardless of what the government says out of a sense of duty to protect my child, regardless of whether I expected the kid to need my kidney or not. And if I had no rights to sue for, unless I am already a rebel against the government I would go ahead and accept death as a righteous punishment for my own cowardice. If I had a problem with the rules, my chance to reject them had already passed. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 4:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/332 "2019-07-10T04:28:23Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > I’ve Challenged this notion under the grounds that killing stowaways, and trespassers is generally considered unacceptable. I don’t think you made an adequate response to **UltraVires** ’s criticisms of that analogy. You didn’t create the stowaway/trespasser situation, being a fetus isn’t a crime because it’s not their fault, and usually the violation of property rights caused by a stowaway/trespasser is nothing like the violation of bodily autonomy suffered during pregnancy. You can try and modify the analogy as I did but, well, you reject my viewpoint. > [@Scylla](#): > > I reject your viewpoint (though it helps my argument that body autonomous is given up by having sex because pregnancy is “the purpose” of sex. I do this because sex has multiple purposes besides generating pregnancy, and also because medicine can and does fix common undesired consequences that are an unwanted result of actions. Don’t think “the purpose”. There are other purposes, I’ll admit it. Think of pregnancy as a natural consequence of sex. Reasonable people know that sex sometimes leads to pregnancy unless you take measures to avoid that outcome. That’s all I meant by saying reproduction is the natural purpose of sex. I also reject your argument about medicines as a circular argument, if you hold the existence of abortifacients as preventing reasonable people from knowing that unprotected sex sometimes leads to pregnancy. > [@Scylla](#): > > Some doctors at memorial hospital took this attitude and euthanized patients without their consent. Society doesn’t allow you to kill yourself if you decide life sucks. Letting somebody else make the decision for you seems like a pretty bad idea. I think this answer is too shallow. Are you talking about the incident in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina? I will play dumb to draw out your rationale. Why was the euthanasia of those patients without their consent wrong? Society doesn’t _encourage_ you to kill yourself if you decide life sucks. You are free to commit suicide if you can do it before the state knows you are suicidal. Even so, _why_ doesn’t society encourage you to commit suicide if you decide life sucks? Adults make decisions for their children all day every day. Why is the decision to kill the child out of mercy unconditionally wrong? Or if it is conditional, what are the conditions? > [@Scylla](#): > > I guess a pro life person would go to town us for this. I.E. if human life is not “sacred” and we can kill because pregnancy is inconvenient, than we can kill for basically any reason. This lack of respect for the human condition leads to a downfall of human values, and weakens if not ultimately destroys our societies. If you read the actual letters of the founders they seemed pretty firm about our constitution being designed for a society founded in religious morals, and we would fall apart them. How can we disrespect human life so much that we allow abortion yet feign compassion for immigrants, the poor? how can we justify welfare and aid to make people more comfortable? If we are killing unborn persons because carrying them to term is inconvenient why not just kill all the other people whose existence poses a burden? Etc. > > My first response to this is “hmmmm. Good point.” My more careful thoughtful response is that to make society work we have to pretend that human life is sacred and pay general lip service so people just don’t killing everybody who needs some form of assistance, unborn babies can’t advocate for themselves, and if their mother’s won’t and appear recalcitrant about offering both pre and post natal care, than we can safely just ignore them, without appearing to ignore our stated values. I’m not the one to argue with what seems to be your cognitive dissonance here, because I share the same unease myself. > [@Scylla](#): > > As I said in my OP, I think [the rights of the fetus is] something every pro choice argument must address. You think so, but as just demonstrated, a good number of people here think it’s irrelevant. I think fetal personhood is very relevant to the bodily autonomy argument, critical even. All in all we haven’t reached that point yet. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Esprise\_Me](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/esprise_me/32/2947_2.png) [@Esprise\_Me](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Esprise_Me)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 4:37am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/333 "2019-07-10T04:37:47Z")
Sure takes courage to decide not to terminate a pregnancy that will never happen to you. Almost as much as it would take to address those points that keep getting lost in the shuffle. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/334 "2019-07-10T04:54:44Z")
> [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > Sure takes courage to decide not to terminate a pregnancy that will never happen to you. If it makes you feel any better, nobody in this thread has admitted to being pro-life. But anyways, here’s two related questions. Should a male have the right to debate the morality of abortion on these message boards, or to consider a candidate’s position on abortion when deciding how to vote? > [@Esprise\_Me](#): > > Almost as much as it would take to address those points that keep getting lost in the shuffle. I’m not sure who this is addressed to but if it is me, let me know what I missed and I’ll respond. 🙂 ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 10:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/335 "2019-07-10T10:35:44Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > The people who had sex didn’t use contraception, and they aren’t claiming to have used contraception. They went to their doctor and said, we had sex, she’s pregnant, but we don’t want to have a baby or deal with pregnancy, can you make it go away? The doctor asks, did you use contraception? No. So you had unprotected sex during ovulation? Yeah. Why does the doctor have to ask that? What if the doctor doesn’t care? Incidentally, why is there a couple in this situation instead of the woman going to the clinic alone? Isn’t that the more likely scenario? > [@](#): > > [DEL]This isn’t a question about medical ethics. Medical ethics says follow the law[/DEL]. This isn’t a question about existing law, either. This is a question about morality. I say, assuming the fetus is a person, they don’t have the moral right to get an abortion unless the mother’s life or health is in actual danger, and the state of pregnancy alone does not qualify. I would like to know why you disagree, assuming the fetus is a person (has the right to live). That’s fine, if that’s the moral determination you have made. It’s not the one I have made using different priorities, i.e. individual freedom. It would sadden me if your votes were influenced by your feelings on this issue. > [@](#): > > It would depend on the circumstances. If I was raped and had one kidney you bet I would take jail time and sue the government for violating my constitutional rights (it’s got to be in there somewhere, probably Eighth Amendment). If I wasn’t raped but had one kidney and didn’t expect the kid to need this operation, I would still take jail time and sue the government. If I had two kidneys, but wasn’t raped, I would probably give my kidney regardless of what the government says out of a sense of duty to protect my child, regardless of whether I expected the kid to need my kidney or not. > > And if I had no rights to sue for, unless I am already a rebel against the government I would go ahead and accept death as a righteous punishment for my own cowardice. If I had a problem with the rules, my chance to reject them had already passed. I’m just going to try to boil this down and figure that you do not find it acceptable for the government to demand you donate a kidney to your child. Your personal sense of duty and what you would do voluntarily is not relevant to the scenario, and American women in states where abortion access has been regulated almost or entirely out of existence are finding their wishes made irrelevant, too. ---
**Author:** ![Max\_S](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/46a35a/32.png) [@Max\_S](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_S)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 1:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/336 "2019-07-10T13:56:49Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It’s not the one I have made using different priorities, i.e. individual freedom. That’s what I’m looking for. Would you care to elaborate? Assuming the fetus is a person. I suspect if you actually assume the fetus is a person, your conclusion would change, that is why I’m pushing this. You don’t have to admit the fetus is a person, just a conditional statement: if the fetus _is_ a person, the bodily autonomy argument fails. > [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I’m just going to try to boil this down and figure that you do not find it acceptable for the government to demand you donate a kidney to your child. Your personal sense of duty and what you would do voluntarily is not relevant to the scenario, and American women in states where abortion access has been regulated almost or entirely out of existence are finding their wishes made irrelevant, too. I don’t think the government has the authority, but the issue would be moot because I would actually donate my kidney in that situation. If I was on Medicaid and they want me to cover the doctor’s bill, I would sue on that, after the fact. And I am of the opinion that as a matter of law, my wishes are already irrelevant. ~Max ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 2:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/337 "2019-07-10T14:17:49Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > I don’t think you made an adequate response to **UltraVires** ’s criticisms of that analogy. You didn’t create the stowaway/trespasser situation, being a fetus isn’t a crime because it’s not their fault, and usually the violation of property rights caused by a stowaway/trespasser is nothing like the violation of bodily autonomy suffered during pregnancy. You can try and modify the analogy as I did but, well, you reject my viewpoint. I understand the weakness of the analogy as the ship/house in the stowaway/trespasser analogy has no agency of it’s own. It’s inherent and can’t be modified on its own. My point is simply that in the entire category of violations in which people are where they are not supposed to be, killing them tends to be very strongly and specially disallowed as a consequence, even under dire circumstances. If pregnancy is different, what is so different. Similarly, I see a contradiction in the idea that life is not as sacred as one’s body autonomy in a Carr before the horse the thing, I.e. it suggests that killing you is less of a thing than cutting your hair against your will. > [@](#): > > Don’t think “the purpose”. There are other purposes, I’ll admit it. Think of pregnancy as a natural consequence of sex. Reasonable people know that sex sometimes leads to pregnancy unless you take measures to avoid that outcome. That’s all I meant by saying reproduction is the natural purpose of sex. > > I also reject your argument about medicines as a circular argument, if you hold the existence of abortifacients as preventing reasonable people from knowing that unprotected sex sometimes leads to pregnancy. I have deliberately not gone down the moral hazard path that you are taken for two specific reasons: 1. This seemingly grants an exception for rape, allowing abortion in cases where women did not give up body autonomy. The end result is that the fetus is punished for the crime of the rapist. Systems that punish third parties with death for the crimes of others violate pretty basic values more fundamental to society than body autonomy, and therefore are fruitless. I had trouble finding my way out of this whole, and decided to bypass the problem by taking another path that did not leave this problem dangling. If you see a way through, I am more than happy to let you lead the way through the thicket. 2. It produces another unacceptable result, in that forcing people to live with the consequences of their actions especially where biology is concerned has become something of an alien concept in modern society and particularly on this board, and I see no chance of my arguing it successfully, so again, I took another route rather than try to go down a road that pushes a value few seem to have. > [@](#): > > I think this answer is too shallow. Are you talking about the incident in New Orleans during Hurricane Katrina? I will play dumb to draw out your rationale. Why was the euthanasia of those patients without their consent wrong? The doctors accepted a duty of care when they accepted service in the hospital. That duty of care specifically precludes killing your patients. Accepting that duty has the requirements that one act both prudently and diligently in the discharge of that duty. They, in fact, did neither. The order of evacuations was backwards to the extent that a child should have seen the problem. The most medically fragile and those requiring the highest level of care were evacuated last which meant that as exhaustion and dwindling resources, and deteriorating conditions placed a strain on the ability to provide care, the workload and strain increased rather than decreased. Secondly, they made another mistake that violates a prudent discharge of their duties by deciding that a dnr meant that someone had given up their place in the rescue line. Doctors should be familiar with the concept of triage and understand its basic principles if they are going to employ it. Several saw the problems coming and protested and one even left over this. The decision to euthanize appears to have been primarily motivated not by a need to end suffering for the patient, but by a desire to leave. That this is so can be seen by the fact that they medicated their patients into i responsiveness with large doses of painkillers, and the used that i responsiveness to justify the euthanasia. They also terminated helicopter rescues one evening because they didn’t want to work in the dark, giving up perhaps the prime opportunity to evacuate. Finally, communication was available enough that if they had thought euthanasia was a valid choice, they could have argued it. Instead it was done by a small group working in near secrecy and without discussion. This action suggests that they knew what they were doing was unacceptable. > [@](#): > > Society doesn’t _encourage_ you to kill yourself if you decide life sucks. You are free to commit suicide if you can do it before the state knows you are suicidal. Even so, _why_ doesn’t society encourage you to commit suicide if you decide life sucks? Intrinsic value of human life would be the biggee. Also, the recognition that suicide is often a transitory desire, and people who do not or are unable to act on their impulse often recover from what inspired them to be suicidal and lead normal lives. > [@](#): > > Adults make decisions for their children all day every day. Why is the decision to kill the child out of mercy unconditionally wrong? Or if it is conditional, what are the conditions? I go with always wrong. Suffering and pain is a condition of life. Humans tend to be terrible judges of what constitutes intolerable as few in western society have any experience with anything remotely close. Killing is a final decision where if one puts it off, it still remains an alternative. I’m not the one to argue with what seems to be your cognitive dissonance here, because I share the same unease myself. You think so, but as just demonstrated, a good number of people here think it’s irrelevant. I think fetal personhood is very relevant to the bodily autonomy argument, critical even. All in all we haven’t reached that point yet. ~Max [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Scylla](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/a5b964/32.png) [@Scylla](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scylla)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 2:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/338 "2019-07-10T14:32:02Z")
Damn this getting logged out and reformatting and stupid iPhone autocorrect. Sorry about the sloppy post. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 2:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/339 "2019-07-10T14:43:55Z")
> [@Max\_S](#): > > That’s what I’m looking for. Would you care to elaborate? Assuming the fetus is a person. I suspect if you actually assume the fetus is a person, your conclusion would change, that is why I’m pushing this. You don’t have to admit the fetus is a person, just a conditional statement: if the fetus _is_ a person, the bodily autonomy argument fails. No, I don’t accept the conditional. If a _person_ was doing to someone what a pregnancy does to a woman and that someone wanted it to stop, I support their right to choose to stop it. If the fetus is a person, too bad for the fetus. If the fetus is not a person… again, too bad for the fetus. My position does not depend on the arbitrary label of “person”. If it did, I would consider it crucially flawed. > [@](#): > > I don’t think the government has the authority, but the issue would be moot because I would actually donate my kidney in that situation. And I support your right to choose otherwise, even if you would not do the same for me. And various state governments are _taking and extending_ that authority regarding abortion, so you can quibble and dodge the hypothetical all you like; the reality persists. ---
**Author:** ![QuickSilver](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quicksilver/32/7832_2.png) [@QuickSilver](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/QuickSilver)\ **Post date:** [July 10, 2019, 3:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527/340 "2019-07-10T15:58:23Z")
> [@Scylla](#): > > My point is simply that in the entire category of violations in which people are where they are not supposed to be, killing them tends to be very strongly and specially disallowed as a consequence, even under dire circumstances. If pregnancy is different, what is so different. Intentionally or not, people are dancing around the subject that there is deep and personal guilt associated with choosing the abortion root. But bad as that may be, at least it can be done in relative secrecy. Carrying out a pregnancy to term not only requires a tremendous personal sacrifice, but the huge potential for social shame when you give the baby up for adoption. To say nothing of the thought that there is a child out in the world that you gave up and most reasonable people would be at the very least haunted daily by the idea. I think you can follow that thread to it’s many unfortunate outcomes for all parties involved in such an arrangement. Not all negative, I admit, but enough for most to wish to avoid it. > [@Scylla](#): > > Similarly, I see a contradiction in the idea that life is not as sacred as one’s body autonomy in a Carr before the horse the thing, I.e. it suggests that killing you is less of a thing than cutting your hair against your will. It is not a contradiction. It is the unfortunate reality of this life. Hard choices are sometimes necessary and there are not always good options. Sometimes there’s just bad and worse. > [@Scylla](#): > > I have deliberately not gone down the moral hazard path that you are taken for two specific reasons: > > 1. This seemingly grants an exception for rape, allowing abortion in cases where women did not give up body autonomy. The end result is that the fetus is punished for the crime of the rapist. Systems that punish third parties with death for the crimes of others violate pretty basic values more fundamental to society than body autonomy, and therefore are fruitless. I had trouble finding my way out of this whole, and decided to bypass the problem by taking another path that did not leave this problem dangling. If you see a way through, I am more than happy to let you lead the way through the thicket. > > 2. It produces another unacceptable result, in that forcing people to live with the consequences of their actions especially where biology is concerned has become something of an alien concept in modern society and particularly on this board, and I see no chance of my arguing it successfully, so again, I took another route rather than try to go down a road that pushes a value few seem to have. Wrong way to look at this, IMO. Addressing: 1. Either the fetus is punished or the woman is punished. Someone suffers. In the case of the latter, insult is added to injury. Some people are able to overcome it. Some not. In the case of the former, I submit that the fetus does not have agency nor appreciable (sufficient) awareness to suffer. 2. I think you underestimate the severity of the decision to abort. I think women (and men who respect/love them) live with that decision as well. It is not, in my opinion, inconsequential. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527.md?page=16) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/a-very-long-analysis-of-the-arguments-related-to-the-abortion-debate/836527.md?page=18)