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

Great Debates
361

I’ve never even suggested there was culpability or fault on the part of the fetus. If it wasn’t a fetus but a growing uterine tumour that triggered a similar range of symptoms, I’d see no value in demanding the woman be denied the chance to have it removed, even if her behaviour had been a key factor in the tumour’s creation.

Well, I recognize that you’re making a moral determination, though it’s based on elements that by my own moral calculus are irrelevant, so agree to disagree, I guess. I don’t see a rational real-world benefit to your position, I have to admit.

This is borderline incoherent to me, I have to admit. What if the law was passed before you were 18 and able to cast a relevant vote? What if you’re currently under 18 and had an ailing child that the government demands you give a kidney to? This is an overly elaborate nonreponse to a fairly simple question.

Culpability for the predicament is yet another irrelevancy. Why would anyone care what caused the predicament? Your child needs a kidney. The government demands you give up one of yours.

From reading the rest of your response, I see stuff along the lines of “yes, with a qualifier” later contradicted by “no, with a qualifier” and both qualifiers are irrelevant or nonsensical to me, so I’m just going to let this one go and not ask again.

362

Can we assume both twins are alert and competent? In this very specific case, no, surgery on their shared body should require the consent of both.

In the case of a so-called parasitic twin that has no independent sentience, have at it.

In the case of parents who have to make a heart-breaking decision whether or not to separate conjoined newborns, where one has a significantly increased risk of death but to give the survivor a better chance at life, I’m prepared to trust the ethics of medical professionals and see no need for legislation on the issue.

363

You didn’t ask me but this is an absurd and twisted comparison on its face.

Is this an extant moral dilemma we need to resolve? And if it were, is the scale and social impact similar, and does it require the same moral conclusion?

Different things are different.

364

That sounds fair to me and is probably the view that most would hold, but I feel like that this suggests that the personhood of the entity being removed IS relevant on whether it is OK to separate two entities. That’s why I don’t think the “bodily autonomy” argument holds up while the “fetus is not a person” argument does.

No it’s not a moral dilemma that is common, but the purpose of this thread as I understand it is to dig at understanding why people believe what they believe, and to evaluate the strengths of different arguments. If you don’t support separating of two conscious conjoined twins that would result in the death of one, I don’t see how you can argue that bodily autonomy overrules everything as some people here are saying.

365

There’s no contradiction; the well-established legal convention is that personhood starts at birth, but personhood has never been immunity from being killed under all possible circumstances. I consider the whole thing to be a red herring, truth be told, and “fetus is not a person” isn’t even an argument, it’s just a negative definition. I won’t challenge it because it seems to lead people to what I consider to be a morally valid result, but I sure wouldn’t use it myself.

366

Perhaps so. I haven’t been able to find any. I did look up some maritime website about stowaways when we first started talking about this. The takeaway though was that people were being found floating in containers and jetsam and such with some food and water, sometimes dead and sometimes alive. Because of this a very strict code was put into place regarding the treatment of stowaways, outlawing setting them adrift, starving them, etc. There is is no mention of extreme situations where there is not enough resources, and I guess this is because if you go sailing on the ocean professionally you are generally careful to bring a lot of excess food and water.

I know people say that. I’m a little skeptical about what they actually do when the rubber hits the road. Oppressive regimes pretty much count on this as a fact.

Again, it’s a thing we say. Reality is and was a bit more different I think. It’s easy to say that I think we as a country should go to war to protect freedom, because, let’s face it, i’m not going. Even if it ends up that I do go, it’s a big war, and if I’m smart and careful probably I can be ok. Or, maybe I “support” our troops whatever that means.

Anyway these are abstract questions. When it comes down to an actual personal choice “you can allow me to restrict your freedom, or I can shoot you in the head” the give me liberty or give me death crowd is going to be small.

Fairness, and practicality (this latter seems to be the prime value if such a thing exists.)
In this or a previous thread some studies were cited showing that many animals do get offended and object when they witness animals being punished for the actions of other animals. From a practical standpoint, your basically destroying the justice system if you admit you are doing this kind of thing. A justice by proxy system seems inherently unworkable (though a fun thought experiment.)

I’m a servant of truth, tempered by a dose of practicality, or it might be cowardice. I’d have to check. Anyhow, good point. I have thought about this, and I know where it goes, and for my money it ends up getting overruled by my original practicality argument about how we really don’t uphold the sanctity of life value in lesser circumstances than unwanted pregnancy. But, what the hell. Let’s run through it anyway in the next post.

Ok, i’ll make the argument, you can jump in on it as you see fit, and maybe i’ll Have company on the gallows.

Unfortunately not. Again, it’s the lip service and practicality thing. It’s total practical to make suicide illegal. Makes us look good, shows that we care. It doesn’t really have any downside. It’s a case in point that allows us to pay lip service to the concept of sanctity of life.

[/quote]
There is a pro-life argument not yet mentioned in this thread which says abortion is often a transitory desire, that mothers who abort have regrets and those who do not abort do not have regrets. I don’t think that argument is worth serious consideration, it is falsifiable but I think it is so unplausible that I won’t bother searching for an appropriate survey.
[/quote

Yes. I suppose we will be touching on this in my next post.

Yes. What I say I would do when asked over the internet over what is almost purely a hypothetical probably doesn’t and shouldn’t carry much weight.

367

We have been kicking around and flirting with this argument for a page or so, and Max has basically shamed me into it. It’s probably correct that we should attempt to walk this into the light and take a good look at it:

If a woman of child bearing age willingly engages in sex there is a nonzero chance this will result in pregnancy. Because contraception is not perfect, this can happen despite the most careful of precautions. By engaging in sex, the woman is accepting this risk and the consequences it may bring.

Right now, a woman generally has the legal freedom to get an abortion, subject to certain conditions, but for the sake of argument let us say that abortion is generally reasonably available.

So, right now the consequences of a pregnancy for a women are to either have a baby or get an abortion. Her body. Her Choice (will ignore miscarriages and such.)

It is interesting to note that the man may not have any choice. Society generally pushes a man morally to accept the choice of the woman. If paternity can and is proven, and the pregnancy results in a baby, and the man has any means or prospects whatsoever he can be forced to support the child financially, and, generally, the mother, as well. This coercion can be moral, societal, or legal. So, right now, a woman with an unwanted pregnancy has options to avoid the unwanted obligation to both carry the baby to term and also to financially support it, since she can also put up for adoption should she choose to do so. A father may or may not have some parental rights. A man’s best defense against an unwanted pregnancy carried to term is to be a total piece of shit that nobody wants around, has no money and no prospects of ever getting any. You would think that convincing women to have sex with such a man would be a problem, but apparently not. Life is full of surprises and real pieces of shit are often surprisingly good at seduction.

In the strong version of this argument we value the sanctity of human life and consider a fetus person with the right to life of any other person. The women gave up her body autonomy, and was held responsible for knowing the risks of pregnancy when she willingly engaged in sex. She is responsible to carry this baby to term. More, she has also taken upon herself a duty of care to be diligent with regards to the health of the unborn child, just as she would were it actually an infant. That means that drinking, smoking, doing drugs or other behavior that may harm the fetus carries the same moral weight and responsibility as if she were doing these things to the infant after it were born. After birth she still has the right to put the baby up for adoption.

The man’s responsibilities haven’t changed at all, nor have any parental rights.

It is interesting note that this change in the woman’s options can be viewed in two ways.

  1. The man was always forced to accept the consequences of his actions. The woman was not. Outlawing abortion moves the bar closer to equal responsibility and fairness. Of course the women still has to carry the baby but that is only nine months. The man may get stuck into paying for the baby and the mother for the next 18 years. It’s still not fair, but at least both parties now can be forced to accept responsibility against their will instead of just one.

  2. This is a giant step backwards for equality and women’s rights. Women now risk losing their ability to have a career and an independent life due to something as stupid as faulty birth control. It moves society backwards 100 years, and reduces women to chattel. Since their lives can be turned upside down and interrupted at any time by the prospect of being forced to carry an unwanted pregnancy to term, this reduces their value to that of mothers and mothers only. It becomes the man’s world that it was 100 years ago. This has vast moral societal and economic consequences. None of the particularly good.

In my OP to discussing the pure sanctity of life argument, I suggested that questioning the motives of those making the argument was a bad rebuttal since it had no bearing on the sanctity of life and whether or not fetus was a person. That remains true in the strong version of the moral consent argument

The weak version of the moral consent argument works just the same as the strong version with one key difference. The weak version does not depend on the sanctity of life or the right to life or the personhood of the fetus. It does require the idea that abortion is bad (which is really a pretty low hurdle. Most people would agree that getting abortion is not a desirable goal.).

How bad do we need to consider abortion to be to support the weak moral consent argument? Just bad enough to overrule the women’s desire for an abortion. Society says that if you spend all your money on lottery tickets and can’t make your car payment you lose your car. You should have known better, planned better and now you have to live with the consequences. Same goes for sex and pregnancy. You took the risk, now you have to live with the consequences. This is a low hurdle. You can hit this hurdle by assigning any kind of value or worth to the unborn child. It doesn’t have to be a person, or have a right to life, you just have to grant that it has some value

If you spend any time thinking about this argument and what society would be like with it, it is very much a societal pressure to return to traditional moral values. This is a natural consequence of outlawing abortion not just for this argument but for all arguments against abortion. This is natural since society evolved for 100s of years where reliable contraception and abortions were not commonly and readily available. Some will argue these mores evolved over 100s of years and they have become pretty refined and very practical. The new morality dependent upon women having full control of their reproductive process is brand new, unrefined, and impractical. If you are. Honest and in favor of the promise of the sexual revolution you will concede that it does cause some problems, but the benefits are well worth working out the kinks.

(I hope you all saw that pun.)

The moral conservatives will likely argue that indeed their are some benefits to the sexual revolution, but as enticing as the idea of the never ending orgy without consequences is, the damage it is causing is not worth it, and it’s best to stick with something that is tested by time, that we know works and maybe even it is what God wants.

I could go back and argue the other side, then switch, and switch again, but I am going to stop here because the debate itself is not really important.

What is important is that in the weak argument we are no longer citing the rhetorical nuclear bombs of the sanctity of human life and the killing of persons as our reasons for outlawing abortion. A counterargument therefore does not need to overcome these high hurdles. Therefore, calling into question the actual motives of the person or persons making this argument can safely ignore them. A question like ‘what is so bad about abortion that you want to set women back 100 years?’ Can no longer be answered with ‘I don’t. I just don’t think you should be allowed to kill babies.”

The weak argument is attractive to pro-lifers, but it is not particularly common because it gets bogged down in the relative weighting of the secondary values. I.e. how bad is abortion, how good/bad are traditional values, how good/bad is the sexual revolution, what exactly are the economic consequences etc.

It is very easy to sweep though these with the “don’t kill babies” nuclear argument, not so easy arguing relative values and preferences. Because of this, you don;t see much of this argument.

These are some things I thought about to some degree as I thought about my OP, though they have been much refined by this thread and it’s contributors. I didn’t write about this argument in either version because the weak version is basically a fail. If you agree that a fetus is not a person, and you are therefore not invoking the sanctity of life, than you have to show that abortion is still worse than everything an unwanted pregnancy entails. This is going to be a pretty subjective argument, not based on easily defined values that are generally agreed upon. It also seems especially vulnerable to the claim that fighting abortion is not the actual goal, but instituting traditional morality is. So, it’s a bad argument.

This brings us back to the strong argument. The strong argument is dependent upon the idea that a fetus is a a person, and the sanctity of human life. In this respect it is indistinguishable from the one big pro-choice argument that I talked about in the OP.

It fails for the same reason I cited in the Op. There actually is no sanctity of human life that society respect beyond lip service. I won’t repeat the whole thing again, as I’ve already done so once or twice.
Where this argument is important is this:

If you believe that a fetus is a person, and has right to life or consider that it is possible that it does or has some version of these things, than there is a good chance that your pro choice argument is completely fucked.

If the woman has responsibility for her pregnancy by willingly having sex, than she has accepted the possible consequence that that action would result in a helpless new person residing inside her body. By doing so she now has a duty of care. She now has the exact same responsibility the parent of a toddler has. She may not act irresponsibly or take actions that may harm that life. If she does she should be held morally and legally responsible.

Proponents of body autonomy arguments have had their entire argument taken away from unless they can overcome the argument that the woman willingly gave up her body autonomy by having sex.

If you accept sanctity of life and even the possibility of personhood or right to life for the fetus this is A very strong argument. There are ramifications for what to do in the case of rape where consent is not given, where body autonomy comes back into play, but other than that I think it basically kills that line of reasoning

(Like I said, for me this moot as I don’t think society can claim it respect to sanctity of life beyond tokenism and lip service)

Now that I have said all that, I will add that I think there is one giant problem with the moral consent argument. I am not sure it makes it quite dead on arrival, but it certainly at least puts it into intensive care in critical condition (perhaps max can salvage it.). Frankly, I am surprised that nobody has brought it up.

Simply put, there is no consent possible when a gun is pointed at you. The gun is evolution. A couple of billion years of evolution have hardwired humans to have sex. It drives them to it instinctually, and it has had billions of years to hone its technique in coercing humans into the ridiculous slapping of nasties that is sex. It has gotten very good at this coercion and sex is inevitable given a population of healthy young people. They are coerced into it to such a degree that they cannot be held accountable for its consequences. It’s like, food, water, breathing and sleeping. Sex is a fact of the human condition

368

I’m out. When abortion rights start to get argued away because they’re unfair to men, it’s time to bail.

369

Regarding moral consent

Do you consider evolution religion?

If i spend a billion years one at a time addicting your ancestors to crack so I can sell my crack. You are born addicted to crack to an inconceivable degree. It is programmed into your genes that crack is the main reason, the very point of your existence even though you never had any. When you are 13 we give you a little taste of crack which suddenly brings the whole addiction roaring to the forefront. You always knew something was there, but you could never truly identify it or understand it’s need until you got that first little taste. Now it is nearly the totality of your existence, an all consuming need. It is nearly the only thing you can think of.

Some time later you say “Hey kid, you want some crack?” And hold up a little white ball of the stuff.

What is his response? Can we say he consented to any of the consequences even if he knew about them?

370

I find it difficult to believe that you think that I was making that argument rather than explaining it to refute it.

371

Transgenderism is hugely helpful in clarifying this situation. Consider a trans man who has coitus with a trans woman; neither of them has had transition surgery. A pregnancy occurs.

If your analysis is correct, the woman will get to choose whether an abortion happens, even though the pregnancy is occurring in the man’s body. He’ll have no choice in the matter.

Except that’s not what happens. Clearly, in this case, the man would get to make the decision.

It’s not about the gender of the couple. It’s about who has something growing in their body.

After you have sex, if something is growing in your body that you don’t want to be there, you have the right to get it out. This is true whether or not the person you have sex with wants you to.

Granted, the overwhelming majority of the time, due to biology, it’s the woman who gets something growing in her body. But it’s not about gender. It’s about the body.

372

Bryan:

It also looks very clear to me that Max took up where I left off after I came to think you were stonewalling.

It seems logical and obvious that your argument is dependent upon the personhood of the fetus remaining unknown. You apparently see that this so, so in order to keep your argument Alice you’ve been claiming that is either unknowable and not important.

Max comports himself a trial lawyer in debating style, and has been pretty carefully backing you into a corner on this point.

A misreading if my post to suggest that I am saying a man’s rights take precedent in the abortion debate appears to be your excuse to leave before being fully cornered.

It is fine that you wish to leave, but if your excuse to do so is to paint me as a mysoginist, I must protest that this is both untrue and a very shitty tactic. The purpose of this thread is to examine arguments relating to the abortion debate. I have been both coyly and overtly accused of being a stealth pro-life advocate for only discussing the flaws in pro-choice arguments (I found these self-refuting enough to ignore as simple as hominem attacks.)

Max has been arguing what appears to be an offshoot of the main pro choice argument which I had not explored in depth. I was doing so here. Because a version of this argument does not directly invoke the right to life/personhood nuclear bomb, it can be interpreted as a societal values argument. There are those that believe that a return to traditional morality is the correct route, and that current societal effects of the sexual revolution have an unfair impact in terms of its consequences to men. This is what I have described. Upon rereading my post, I can’t see how it is anything but clear that I am simply describing this argument without endorsing it. Not only do I not endorse it, I think it is a stupid argument.

Hopefully that clears that up.

373

Interesting point. For purposes of my argument in the post you cite, we can read “man” to be defined as a human who produces sperm capable of inseminating an egg, and “women” as a human who produces eggs and the attendant biological apparatus to carry it to term. I.E. purely biological.

374

But then, let’s be clear, there’s nothing sexist or unfair. The same situation applies to everyone: if there’s something growing in your body, and you want it out, you get to get it out, regardless of anyone else’s opinion.

This applies to tapeworms, fetuses, and tumors. Obviously fetuses are different from those others in other ways–primarily, that people often WANT the fetus in their body. But the underlying principle (you get to get things out of your body that you don’t want in there) is the same.

It’s not about gender. It’s about things growing in your body.

375

This is a tough enough topic without bringing the gender debate into it, doubly so because the issue doesn’t appear settled even amongst the most progressive.

The one trans person I know is a coworker who is biologically female (I guess,) dresses as a man (maybe taking testosterone, I dunno,) is married to a biological female. She identifies as a man, but uses the ladies room and prefers “she” and “Mrs.”

I like her and she is nice and it’s none of my business, so that is how I refer to her. If she changes to prefer “he” that’s fine, too.

I currently use male and female signifiers to refer exclusively to biological sex unless specifically doing otherwise, just because that seems to avoid confusion. If individuals prefer to be referred to otherwise or society generates some sort of consensus, I will adjust. My only desire is to communicate clearly, and politely.

That works fine in this debate as only biological females can get pregnant and have abortions and only biological males can sure children.

Is that ok?
I reject the idea that people have the right to get anything out of their body they don’t like be it person or not, because I am not willing to paint with so broad a brush.

I think I would have a problem with aborting a healthy viable 8 month old fetus under most non extreme conditions, and I don’t think you have a right to go to a doctor and demand a procedure to remove your intestines, so that you will lose weight.

So I think we can’t generalize but need to stay specific.

376

True, but somebody who runs on ice while wearing bowling shoes should reasonably expect to slip and fall. Someone who goes outdoors when it’s icy should not necessarily have a reasonable expectation that they will fall, if they take certain precautions. Similarily someone who has sex does not necessarily have a reasonable expectation that they will become pregnant, if they take certain precautions. That’s the purpose of the distinction I made.

I think you are making an inappropriate comparison. That pregnancy is a natural consequence of unprotected sex is analogous to slipping being a natural consequence of running on ice while wearing bowling shoes. The dependency of the unborn child on its mother during pregnancy is analogous to the dependency on an organ transplant caused by falling on a child.

When you say falling on a person naturally causes injury, the analogue would be that pregnancy makes the unborn child dependent. Your point is conceded, but it is not clear how this makes my argument bad.

This just shows that I have failed to properly explain the analogy. When I said “if this injury to the child was somehow natural and expected of every human being”, I meant “if it was natural and expected that every human being be injured to the point of needing an organ transplant due to the actions of a person wearing bowling shoes running and slipping on ice”.

The analogy is not that every human being is expected to become pregnant. The proper analogy is that it is expected that every human being to be dependent on their mother while their mother is pregnant with them.

I wouldn’t discount indirect risks to the woman’s life, but everything that doesn’t fall under that category is a restatement of the trolley problem, and I am not inclined to explore that tangent in this thread. The decision would not be the government’s, but a doctor’s, and I expect doctors to consider the various particulars of the patient’s condition when determining whether her life or major bodily functions are in danger.

~Max

377

The only reason I would disagree with you is if we stipulated that the fetus, unlike a tumor, is a person.

Could you point out the elements you find irrelevant? I think the only element would be my saying the fetus is a person and has the right to live. If you were to assume this for the sake of argument, can you still disagree with me?

Neither do I, as I think it will fail on other grounds, namely by rejecting that the fetus has rights and that assuming sex to be unprotected makes my determination inapplicable for a good number of cases. But that is the next step, after we agree on this conditional concession.

Then I would die thinking life is unfair.

You asked whether it is acceptable for the government to demand I donate a kidney. I say it would depend on how many kidneys I had and whether I caused the child’s predicament and there was a reasonable expectation that my actions would lead to that outcome. Whether or not you or the government cares about those particulars has no bearing on the fact that I do.

Perhaps you are a moral absolutist and you do not agree with my conditional judgement of the law’s acceptability. I would certainly say the law has the potential to be immoral if it is written without exceptions. But you didn’t ask about my opinion of the law, you asked about my opinion of their demand, and in my opinion, that would depend on the particulars.

~Max

378

I see in this statement an unstated assumption or two. First is the assumption that faulty birth control means the mother waived her right to bodily autonomy. Second is the assumption that birth control is available. Third is the assumption that women have the right to have sex without risking pregnancy and all the suffering entailed.

I personally only dispute the first assumption I listed, assuming the fetus is a person, because I use “reasonable expectation” as the standard. So I do not take the “strong” stance you described. But neither do I take the “weak” stance you described. The second assumption may or may not be true depending on the particular circumstances of a case. The third assumption is unsupportable with secular rationale. Your opinion?

~Max

379

All in all, I agree with this analysis.

And this argument I cannot overcome, bravo! But take this to a theologian of the Catholic faith, preferably one who disapproves of the child molesting scandal, and see what resistance you find there. You will find that according to Catholicism, sex is generally for procreation, and fornication is in every case immoral; the only exception is for a husband and wife who use natural planning techniques, and only then when they already have kids.

At the risk of two Monty Python references within twenty-four hours,

~Max

380

I think his response will be “yes”. I would not say he consented to the consequences, as he was unknowingly conditioned for addiction before it is possible to ascribe culpability.

I will reserve my counterarguments for when you try to apply this to sex.

~Max