A Very Long Analysis of the Arguments Related to the Abortion Debate

[Max_S]

@Scylla

Fred has a machine that turns logs of burled walnut into DVD players. Each one is different and unique because of the different logs used and some are arguably better than others. They are reasonably valuable though because hey, it’s a DVD player made completely out of wood.

Fred loads a log and turns on the machine. Roughly a third of the way through the process Steve shows up and messes with the machine, halting the process. The machine is fine, but the log/dvd player is a total loss.

I say Steve owes Fred reparations for the log, repairs, and lost profits corresponding to the amount of time the machine actually spent on that log and any subsequent downtime, which may be more or less than the value of a DVD player depending on the particulars. This is in addition to any statutory damages, unless actual damages are barred by statute.

~Max

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Max_S

I thought I addressed this. There’s no culpability or reasonable expectation for a kidney failure, and if there was, at the time of conception, I might actually argue that having unprotected sex constitutes negligence on your part and hold you accountable.

~Max

I think I addressed that last issue, myself, in 142 when I said:

I’m not sure how “consequence free” got into this. Of course there are consequences, consequences that can be resolved by a trip to the clinic. Are those insufficiently “consequential” by some arbitrary metric?

In this case, the term is “accountable”, but I think the same question can apply. By what arbitrary metric is someone sufficiently or insufficiently “accountable” ?

And besides, reasonable expectations are irrelevant. Picture the state deciding on your behalf that you will give a kidney to your ailing child. Acceptable? Not?

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

Hmm. Change it slightly: I invite a child on this six-month trip. Halfway through the trip, the child becomes ill, to the extent that if I don’t spend a few hours a day caring for the child, she’ll die. Am I morally obligated to provide that care? In this case, it’s my bodily autonomy at issue: I am required to do things with my body.

I’d say yes.

But the key thing is, I’d still say yes if I hadn’t invited the child along. The invitation didn’t waive my rights to bodily autonomy; the invitation is irrelevant to the question.

For what it’s worth, I don’t see a contradiction between being pro-choice and yet recognizing the concept of custodial duty, which in this example is implied by you travelling with the child. Their parent or guardian must have consented to this transfer of duty (or, arguably, you’d be engaged in kidnapping), so there is an obligation on your part to take reasonable steps to protect the child. I doubt you’d be stuck with the duty, though - you could take the necessary steps to return her to her parents’ custody or transfer into the custody of someone else (hopefully a hospital of some sort). It wouldn’t be immediate, but you do have remedies.

[Max_S]

@thorny_locust

I’m aware that anti-choice people complain that an exemption that allows for health…

I’m with you on that, the regional board of medicine should be a sufficient bulwark against flagrant abuse of medical discretion.

@thorny_locust

I am also, while I’m at it, entirely unconvinced by arguments that the primary purpose of sex in humans is reproduction. In addition to what I’ve said previously: most humans physically want sex more or less continuously, already pregnant or not, from their early teens into extreme old age, including considerable lengths of time during which pregnancy is not possible. There might be some sort of argument to be made that the primary purpose for sex in humans were reproduction if we only went into heat when in physical condition to initiate a pregnancy and were totally uninterested in sex the rest of the time, but if we were built like that I very much doubt we’d be having this argument.

Very well, I will stop pushing the primary purpose thing and just say reproduction is a natural consequence of sex. Sex causes pregnancy. It’s a fact! Not all sex causes pregnancy, but all pregnancies are caused by sex*, and a reasonable person should know that unprotected sex can lead to pregnancy.

*exception for artificial fertilization

@thorny_locust

And I am equally unconvinced, as I’ve said previously, by arguments that a person consenting to have sex with a specific person in a specific manner at a specific time, which consent can be withdrawn at any moment, is somehow also providing a non-withdrawable consent to host a different person entirely inside herself for months if the condom happens to slip or the vas deferens has regrown. That is just plain not how consent works.

Consent can’t be withdrawn after the fact. One can withdraw consent for future acts, even acts that would be in the immediate future, but if the semen is already deposited nothing can prevent insemination. If the insemination was nonconsensual that is rape, but if she was having consensual unprotected sex during ovulation and relied on the man to pull out as the only form of contraception, that is also stupid, for both of them.

Right now I’m only trying to hold up the consent theory in cases where contraception was not used.

~Max

[Delayed_Reflex]

@Scylla

Like I said, you don’t have to buy into my values here.

For shits and giggles let’s make an analogy that describes our relative positions on this:

Fred has a machine that turns logs of burled walnut into DVD players. Each one is different and unique because of the different logs used and some are arguably better than others. They are reasonably valuable though because hey, it’s a DVD player made completely out of wood.

Fred loads a log and turns on the machine. Roughly a third of the way through the process Steve shows up and messes with the machine, halting the process. The machine is fine, but the log/dvd player is a total loss.

I say that Steve owes Fred a the value of a wooden DVD player. In the normal course of events that was what it was in the process of becoming, and that is what Fred interfered with. If not for Steve, Fred would have his DVD player. So that is Fred’s loss.

You say that Steve owes Fred a log. A DVD player has the ability to read data and transmit it through an output. The process was terminated before the reader and the output were functional. Therefore no DVD player was destroyed. Steve only destroyed a log.
I think those are a fair analogy of our relative positions.

So, do you view miscarriages in the same way that you would view the death of a newborn, no matter how early on in the pregnancy that it occurred?

I don’t think people are saying that they consider the partially-processed log as being just a log - it is clearly something in between a log and a DVD player. But it is definitely NOT a DVD player. That being said, it is understandable if Fred feels like he’s lost a DVD player because it seemed like an inevitable outcome of the process that had been started. I imagine that even the staunchest pro-choice advocates are sympathetic to women and men who have suffered from miscarriages and understand that they feel like they have lost a child.

However, in your analogy, suppose instead of Steve messing up the process, Fred put a log into the machine, but just as the machine has started he decided that he didn’t want a DVD player anymore and stopped the machine of his whole volition. In this hypothetical world, it is illegal to destroy a DVD player. Should Fred be charged with destroying a DVD player?

Back to your oak tree example. Digging up a freshly planted acorn is different from digging up a seedling that has established roots, which is different from cutting down an established fully grown oak tree. You are suggesting that a freshly planted acorn is already an oak tree - but why? It doesn’t resemble an oak tree physically, nor does it perform similar functions to a tree. Any number of things could happen to that acorn that will prevent it from growing into a tree - it could dry out, rot, not get enough light to grow, not have established in a viable plot of soil, etc. Yes, digging it up would prevent it from becoming an oak tree, but it is hard to draw the equivalency between digging up an acorn and cutting down a tree.

[Max_S]

@Bryan_Ekers

I think I addressed that last issue, myself, in 142 when I said:

In this case, the term is “accountable”, but I think the same question can apply. By what arbitrary metric is someone sufficiently or insufficiently “accountable” ?

And besides, reasonable expectations are irrelevant.

The metric is whether a reasonable person would expect that consequence. I’m not sure if you have jury trials in your jurisdiction, but that’s what I had in mind here.

@Bryan_Ekers

Picture the state deciding on your behalf that you will give a kidney to your ailing child. Acceptable? Not?

You’ve got it all wrong. To have the state forcibly remove your kidney, even if you are morally required to do so, even if you personally ripped out hundreds of kidneys from innocent bystanders in a kidney-killing-spree, is unconscionable. Sure, they can punish you or even kill you for what you did or did not do in a given situation, and that might be moral after-the-fact. But while they can rip out your kidneys, under anything resembling our current framework they haven’t the authority to do so; specifically, I think organ donation is a “cruel and unusual punishment”; while some may think pregnancy is cruel, I would contend that it is unusual at all, being a natural consequence of sex.

~Max

[Scylla]

@Max_S

Those who claim to be prophets are immune to mortal rhetoric, and historically have only been countered by the sword. Such is life. No debate is to be had there.

I doubt most people believe God spoke to them directly. Rather they base their views on God speaking to others or on their interpretation of what they think is nonverbal divine communication via physical phenomena. No cites because this is pure conjecture. Neither can I defend such people, because I quite honestly have no idea what their argument is - it is probably very personal and specific. But this is how I think most people believe.

Now on to fundamentalism. There was an argument, not a Catholic one, I think based on Genesis 2:7, that ensoulment happens when man breathes his first breath. “And the LORD God formed man of the dust in the ground, and breathed into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.” There’s not much exegesis to be had, before he was dust, and divine breath made him a living soul. Therefore when an infant takes its first breath, that is the moment it gains a soul. That would seem quite pro-choice.

I think Aquinas’s Summa Theologica placed ensoulment at forty days, although prior to that the fetus had a lesser soul like that of an animal or plant. Aristotle’s Generation of Animals took a similar tier-based approach, and probably informed Aquinas. The forty-day line is also the view of Rabbinic Judaism (practically all Jews today). I think that was in Yevamot, but I’m not sure how the Jewish sages reached that conclusion. There is also Exodus 21 where two men fight and injure a pregnant woman, who miscarries. The miscarriage is treated like property damage with a fine.

On the other hand you have the commandment to be fruitful and multiply, given both to Adam and Noah in Genesis. This is the original basis for the Catholic Church’s condemnation of intentional abortion, which has always been condemned. Coincidentally it is also the basis for their position against contraception.

There is a second line of reasoning is to my knowledge, the magesterium has never decided when ensoulment actually takes place. In the face of uncertainty the Church teaches not to take chances, to treat the fetus as if it had a soul from the moment of conception. Either way the Church does not distinguish between personhood and the genetic individual formed at conception. See Paul II’s Evangelium vitae at 58-63.

~Max

You type incredibly fast, yet apparently almost never make a typo. Your apparently form your arguments, wholly intact, without any of that tedious need to ponder and mull and revise. Your arguments are phrased concisely and clearly, in such a way that is virtually impossible to misunderstand or misrepresent them, as if Hemingway has toiled over your prose for 6 months.

It appears that you know everything about everything and have it all instantly available.

Every time some intriguing new guy shows up and dazzles everybody, it’s either an Ayn Rand novel or one of those movies where it turns out he’s recruiting everybody into his suicide cult.

At any rate, I am sort of awestruck.

[Max_S]

@Bryan_Ekers

I’m not sure how “consequence free” got into this. Of course there are consequences, consequences that can be resolved by a trip to the clinic. Are those insufficiently “consequential” by some arbitrary metric?

Is your argument here that a reasonable woman who has consents to unprotected sex does not expect to have to deal with nine months of pregnancy because she can have an abortion?

Mr. Ekers, that is a circular argument. She can have an abortion because she has not waived her right to bodily autonomy. She did not waive her right to bodily autonomy when she consented to unprotected sex because she can have an abortion. She can have an abortion because she has not waived her right to bodily autonomy. Etcetera.

Easily avoided with a delayed effective date for the relevant legislation.

~Max

[Max_S]

@Scylla

You type incredibly fast, yet apparently almost never make a typo. Your apparently form your arguments, wholly intact, without any of that tedious need to ponder and mull and revise. Your arguments are phrased concisely and clearly, in such a way that is virtually impossible to misunderstand or misrepresent them, as if Hemingway has toiled over your prose for 6 months.

It appears that you know everything about everything and have it all instantly available.

Every time some intriguing new guy shows up and dazzles everybody, it’s either an Ayn Rand novel or one of those movies where it turns out he’s recruiting everybody into his suicide cult.

At any rate, I am sort of awestruck.

Thank you, but I don’t have the powers of composition ascribed to Ms. Rand. I actually keep a pen and paper handy and make notes while reading a thread, and those notes make it much easier to follow and respond to things. More importantly, it means I don’t lose all my work when moving between offices or between the home and office. I also use multiple browser tabs and run multiple instances of a word processor, one for each response I plan on making. And while I type fast, I’m no speed demon, I think it’s about 60 words per minute.

~Max

[Scylla]

@Delayed_Reflex

So, do you view miscarriages in the same way that you would view the death of a newborn, no matter how early on in the pregnancy that it occurred?

My wife had one. We viewed it that way. It’s more about coping than anything else. There is no moral stake. I would strongly respect anybody’s perspective on how they deal with it or consider it, and think very poorly of anyone who did not

However, in your analogy, suppose instead of Steve messing up the process, Fred put a log into the machine, but just as the machine has started he decided that he didn’t want a DVD player anymore and stopped the machine of his whole volition. In this hypothetical world, it is illegal to destroy a DVD player. Should Fred be charged with destroying a DVD player?

You say “just as the machine was started” I would take this to mean that the machine has made enough cuts that it has committed that log to be being a DVD player. I would define “committed” as meaning that there are only two possible outcomes. 1. The log is a total loss, it is no longer good or useful for anything, not even as a log. It can’t be turned into anything else. 2. The log becomes a DVD player.

If we reached that point of commitment than yes he killed a DVD player, may shod have mercy on his soul.

Back to your oak tree example. Digging up a freshly planted acorn is different from digging up a seedling that has established roots, which is different from cutting down an established fully grown oak tree. You are suggesting that a freshly planted acorn is already an oak tree - but why? It doesn’t resemble an oak tree physically, nor does it perform similar functions to a tree. Any number of things could happen to that acorn that will prevent it from growing into a tree - it could dry out, rot, not get enough light to grow, not have established in a viable plot of soil, etc. Yes, digging it up would prevent it from becoming an oak tree, but it is hard to draw the equivalency between digging up an acorn and cutting down a tree.

Ok. All those things can happen, but once it sprouts and takes root it is pretty much going to be an oak tree in the normal course of events, unless something bad happens to it. If I am the bad thing that happens to it than I killed the oak tree.

[Scylla]

@Max_S

Thank you, but I don’t have the powers of composition ascribed to Ms. Rand. I actually keep a pen and paper handy and make notes while reading a thread, and those notes make it much easier to follow and respond to things. More importantly, it means I don’t lose all my work when moving between offices or between the home and office. I also use multiple browser tabs and run multiple instances of a word processor, one for each response I plan on making. And while I type fast, I’m no speed demon, I think it’s about 60 words per minute.

~Max

So you admit that you’re a suicide cult leader.

(SDMB logic 101)

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Max_S

The metric is whether a reasonable person would expect that consequence. I’m not sure if you have jury trials in your jurisdiction, but that’s what I had in mind here.

Okay, then the woman says she was using contraception with a failure rate of only 7% (the CDC’s estimate for “the pill”). A reasonable person would expect success (in this case, no conception). Do you want to try to prove she is lying?

You’ve got it all wrong.

No, I don’t. You’re layering on all this extra stuff about cruel and unusual punishments, when all the state has to do is decide that you have a duty to give a kidney to your child, which is a far more relevant scenario to abortion. The punishment for noncompliance could be a conventional jail sentence, which is not considered cruel or unusual.

Do you object to the state hypothetically mandating this duty on you?

[Delayed_Reflex]

A hypothetical to explore the personhood issue more - suppose the technology existed that a zygote or fetus at any stage could be removed from a woman and incubated and grown into a fully viable human, in the same way that a premature birth can be sustained currently - this removes the bodily autonomy argument, as a zygote/fetus could be removed from the woman without harming it.

Would people (especially those who use the body autonomy argument as their main one) support mandating the use of this technology if it existed, banning abortions that result in the death of the zygote/fetus? People who believe that the fetus is a person, but that a woman’s bodily autonomy supercedes the rights of the fetus should support the use of this technology, but people who don’t believe fetuses are persons should be ambivalent to it.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Max_S

Is your argument here that a reasonable woman who has consents to unprotected sex does not expect to have to deal with nine months of pregnancy because she can have an abortion?

Sure. Why not? As far as I’m concerned, the onus is on the state to justify blocking her from having an abortion, if at any time she finds herself pregnant and doesn’t wish to remain so.

Mr. Ekers, that is a circular argument.

If it is, then so is defending any civil right.

[Max_S]

@Scylla

So you admit that you’re a suicide cult leader.

(SDMB logic 101)

I’m not, even though there’s a touch of absurdism and nihilism in my Religion thread right now.

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.

The Left Hand of Dorkness laid out a nice order of arguments in [POST=21740675]post #271[/POST].

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.

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.

~Max

[Max_S]

@Bryan_Ekers

Okay, then the woman says she was using contraception with a failure rate of only 7% (the CDC’s estimate for “the pill”). A reasonable person would expect success (in this case, no conception). Do you want to try to prove she is lying?

No, I wouldn’t. Right now I’m talking about consensual, unprotected sex. They admit it was unprotected. Yes, that’s unrealistic, but it is possible and I’m trying to probe your mind.

@Bryan_Ekers

No, I don’t. You’re layering on all this extra stuff about cruel and unusual punishments, when all the state has to do is decide that you have a duty to give a kidney to your child, which is a far more relevant scenario to abortion. The punishment for noncompliance could be a conventional jail sentence, which is not considered cruel or unusual.

Do you object to the state hypothetically mandating this duty on you?

If the state says a person who voluntarily commits an act, which a reasonable person in that situation would expect to cause a child to require a kidney transplant, has a duty to provide a kidney or pay for the operation, on penalty of imprisonment;
if a jury of my peers says a reasonable person in my situation would expect the act to cause her to require a kidney transplant;
then while I might vehemently disagree with the jurors, unless I found some procedural injustice I would submit to the rule of law, be it the loss of a kidney, the loss of money, a prison sentence or a death sentence.

~Max

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Scylla

Like I said, you don’t have to buy into my values here.

For shits and giggles let’s make an analogy that describes our relative positions on this:

Fred has a machine that turns logs of burled walnut into DVD players. Each one is different and unique because of the different logs used and some are arguably better than others. They are reasonably valuable though because hey, it’s a DVD player made completely out of wood.

Fred loads a log and turns on the machine. Roughly a third of the way through the process Steve shows up and messes with the machine, halting the process. The machine is fine, but the log/dvd player is a total loss.

I say that Steve owes Fred a the value of a wooden DVD player. In the normal course of events that was what it was in the process of becoming, and that is what Fred interfered with. If not for Steve, Fred would have his DVD player. So that is Fred’s loss.

You say that Steve owes Fred a log. A DVD player has the ability to read data and transmit it through an output. The process was terminated before the reader and the output were functional. Therefore no DVD player was destroyed. Steve only destroyed a log.
I think those are a fair analogy of our relative positions.

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.

On the other hand, if Fred needs to sell the DVD player at 6 pm, and there’s no way to get it sold then, Steve owes him the lost wages.

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.

[Left_Hand_of_Dorkness]

@Bryan_Ekers

For what it’s worth, I don’t see a contradiction between being pro-choice and yet recognizing the concept of custodial duty, which in this example is implied by you travelling with the child. Their parent or guardian must have consented to this transfer of duty (or, arguably, you’d be engaged in kidnapping), so there is an obligation on your part to take reasonable steps to protect the child. I doubt you’d be stuck with the duty, though - you could take the necessary steps to return her to her parents’ custody or transfer into the custody of someone else (hopefully a hospital of some sort). It wouldn’t be immediate, but you do have remedies.

I invited the whole family, but the illness that’s hit the child killed the parents. Also, we’re in SPAAAAACE.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Max_S

No, I wouldn’t. Right now I’m talking about consensual, unprotected sex. They admit it was unprotected. Yes, that’s unrealistic, but it is possible and I’m trying to probe your mind.

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?

If the state says a person who voluntarily commits an act, which a reasonable person in that situation would expect to cause a child to require a kidney transplant, has a duty to provide a kidney or pay for the operation, on penalty of imprisonment;
if a jury of my peers says a reasonable person in my situation would expect the act to cause her to require a kidney transplant;
then while I might vehemently disagree with the jurors, unless I found some procedural injustice I would submit to the rule of law, be it the loss of a kidney, the loss of money, a prison sentence or a death sentence.

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?

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Left_Hand_of_Dorkness

I invited the whole family, but the illness that’s hit the child killed the parents. Also, we’re in SPAAAAACE.

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.

I recall at least one reply that said this meant I thought it was reasonable to shoot kids for stepping on my lawn, meaning they had entirely missed the point of the hypothetical. Similar stuff in this thread, I see, where defending abortion rights is implied to mean wanting to give someone license to kill anyone who annoys them.