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

[Delayed_Reflex]

@Scylla

Thank you very much. That’s high praise.

When you say you don’t buy #1, are you saying that you deny it because you honestly believe it is not true, or fo you deny it because you are not sure whether it is true, but that to grant it has unacceptable consequences.

I am pretty sure it’s the former, but the way you discussed this made me double check.

Yes, I do believe the former, that I don’t believe that zygotes are people. I think for example a miscarriage, while sad, is not the same level of tragedy as an infant death.

However I think that even if I were to accept that zygotes were people, I probably would still support abortion for pragmatic reasons, but I would feel worse about it. Ie. I would be sad if people choose to walk away from the “body in a box” and let it die, but I think it would be an acceptable moral choice, akin to choosing not to save a drowning child.

[QuickSilver]

@Scylla

I don’t think the argument makes any kind of sense. In order for the argument to make sense you must value control over one’s body higher than you value human life in general (assuming you grant the premise that an unborn child is a person, of course.)

Why? What value allows for this? A body is just a bag of meat. What makes it special? The only thing I can come up with is that your body is special because it belongs to you. It is your property, and most feel that you have a right to access and use your property. In a way that you see fit.

So a holder of this stance values property rights higher than it values human life.

The fact that it doesn’t make sense to me and I can’t make it work logically and consistently doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Perhaps it is obvious to you. If so, i’d Love to hear it.

The owner of the body also happens to be a human life. If we’ve established (I thought we have and you agreed):
a) the primacy of ones own life over another, unless one chooses otherwise.
b) that nobody can be forced to save another human life from drowning or kidney failure - worth noting neither scenario necessarily poses a danger to you, except possibly an inconvenience of having to get out of your comfy chair.

Both of which render the question of, “Is a fetus a person?”, moot.

Then why are you having so much trouble with the concept of choosing not to support the (emerging) life of a fetus growing inside you?

[iiandyiiii]

@Scylla

I’m not avoiding anything, and I’m not assigning rights. I’m evaluating arguments. FWIW, if you read my OP, you’ll see I end up on the pro choice side.

But, let me try to answer your question anyway:

I don’t think the argument makes any kind of sense. In order for the argument to make sense you must value control over one’s body higher than you value human life in general (assuming you grant the premise that an unborn child is a person, of course.)

Why? What value allows for this? A body is just a bag of meat. What makes it special? The only thing I can come up with is that your body is special because it belongs to you. It is your property, and most feel that you have a right to access and use your property. In a way that you see fit.

So a holder of this stance values property rights higher than it values human life.

This is an unusual stance. We place all kinds of controls on the use of property, including bodies. For example, you just can’t throw a stowaway overboard. You are not allowed to murder yourself, etc. you can be put in prison and use of your body restricted by restraints, etc. etc.

So, what does the fact that one body is inside of another body have to do with anything? What makes a body in a special category outside of other property? What makes pregnancy an even more special circumstance, that disallows restrictions on the use of your body when said use may be restricted for what appear to be lesser reasons?

Perhaps there is something intrinsic in this argument over a right to control one’s body that I am missing. If so, I suspect that it is that you consider someone’s Body to be their ‘person.” That is supposedly some special category of property.

If it’s so special than why does society not resist imposing restrictions upon it as outlined above? Why is pregnancy exempted as special form restrictions, particularly the one against the taking of another life?

You see, when you say a fetus can’t make use of somebody else’s body for survival you have not made a complete consistent argument (unless you are placing property rights above sanctity of life in general) are you doing so?

People sometimes try to argue around this problem by saying something like “nobody forces you to give a kidney transplant” or such this is true.

Similarly you generally can’t be forced to take somebody as a passenger on your boat, or as a tenant in your home. Once they are there though the situation changes. They have something like squatter’s rights, and you just can’t kill them because they are where they aren’t supposed to be, making use of a resource that isn’t theirs.

A fetus is even more blameless than most stowaways or squatters. These latter usually had to take such action or make some choice to end up where they aren;t supposed to be. A fetus has no such choice and is blameless for its trespass.

---

I haven’t figured out a way where any sort of reasonably acceptable and agreeable value system consistently allows an abortion under bodily sovereignty criteria without creating all kinds of other situations where killing of people that are violating property rights also would not apply.

So, not only is the argument incomplete, when it is examined it tends to look like an obvious nonstarter.

The fact that it doesn’t make sense to me and I can’t make it work logically and consistently doesn’t mean it can’t be done. Perhaps it is obvious to you. If so, i’d Love to hear it.

Bodies aren’t property, they’re bodies. They can’t be bought and sold. Even if you could sell your organs, once it’s removed, it’s no longer part of your body. So it’s not about or even related to property rights - it’s control of one’s own body. If it’s a special category, then that’s entirely expected, because one’s body is a category of its own.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Scylla

We are examining arguments to see if they are logical, make sense, are internally consistent, whst values they depend on and whether the implications of those values are upheld outside of the particular case. This last helps us to see whether the value is actually held or whether it is just a pretense.

Your stance seems to be that there is a special case regarding whether something is a person or not depending on whether it is inside another body, and depending on wether the host considers it a person or not.

That is very much NOT my stance; it’s you trying to view my stance through the lens of your own. My position is actually fairly consistent, no “special case” exception is required as I shall illustrate:

Level One Intrusion: there’s a unwanted squatter living on my land. There is no obvious threat to myself but nevertheless this is not a situation I have to tolerate. I can pursue legal action and involve police to have the squatter removed. It is not necessary to first declare, nor at any point declare, that the squatter is not a person.

Level Two Intrusion: there’s an unwanted intruder in my house. There MAY be a threat to my person, I dont know for sure but I could reasonably assume there could be. In addition to calling police to have the intruder removed, I could arm myself and kill the intruder if I feel threatened. It is not necessary to first declare, nor at any point declare, that the intruder is not a person.

Level Three Intrusion: there’s a unwanted fetus in my body. The physical threat to me is undeniable. My range of responses increases accordingly and I can meet a doctor to have the fetus removed. It is not necessary to first declare, nor at any point declare, that the fetus is not a person.

I can easily picture myself in Levels One and Two. I can empathize with women who find themselves in Level Three. In none of the cases do I see the value of someone else telling me “no, you can’t do that, you have no legal right to remedy the situation, you’ll just have to accept it until it resolves itself.”

This is why the personhood issue is moot. I recognize the axiomatic nature of the idea that someone can have exclusive rights over their land, their house and their body, but I’m not seeing any obvious flaws in my reasoning, nor am I carving out special cases. The level of response is proportional to the level of intrusion, is all.

If there is still an explanatory gap, please point it out. Your attempt to equate me with Nazis is too comical for response and I won’t indulge it.

[Scylla]

Bryan:

Before I go any further, please indulge me and answer a question

Earlier you said; “The significant element is not the nature or labeling of the intrusive item, but the wishes of the person whose body is being intruded upon.“

I took this to mean that you think that whether or not a fetus is a person is dependent on what the mother says. If she says it’s a person, it’s a person. If she says it’s not a person, it’s not.

I now have that ugly feeling that I had just a few posts ago when I said I did not use the word “murder.” Because I now think that what you meant was that it doesn’t matter whether it is a person or not, because it is the women’s choice whether anything be it person, place, or thing resides within her body.

Is it the former, the latter or something else?

[Scylla]

@QuickSilver

The owner of the body also happens to be a human life. If we’ve established (I thought we have and you agreed):
a) the primacy of ones own life over another, unless one chooses otherwise.
b) that nobody can be forced to save another human life from drowning or kidney failure - worth noting neither scenario necessarily poses a danger to you, except possibly an inconvenience of having to get out of your comfy chair.

Both of which render the question of, “Is a fetus a person?”, moot.

Then why are you having so much trouble with the concept of choosing not to support the (emerging) life of a fetus growing inside you?

I know you are going to find this difficult to believe, but it is just barely conceivably possible that I might have made this teensy error.

[QuickSilver]

@Scylla

I know you are going to find this difficult to believe, but it is just barely conceivably possible that I might have made this teensy error.

It’s a good thing then that you kept your drawing board.

[AHunter3]

@Scylla

2. While everyone understands sacrificing soldiers to war and workers to industry and people dying for the greater good, I’m not sure people are ok with the idea of killing the helpless. They tend to be traditionally exempt from being sacrificial lambs. We don’t send babies and school kids to fight Hitler, et al.

I never replied to this portion of your return volley.

I may not have a good argument-to-convince to offer to pro-life people, but in essence, imagine a 12 year old and a 7 month old fetus. In marked contrast to the notion that the older individual is in some coherent sense “less innocent” (whatever the fuck THAT may mean), I consider the 12 year old to have an investment in the life they are living; they have a developed sense of self, a personal history, a library of attitudes and beliefs and intentions. The fetus does not. If I kill it now, the self that it is (if you believe in a Self), comes back with nothing lost and tries again. If I kill the 12 year old, I’ve killed off all of that investment.

I’m not saying the fetus is not alive, nor that it is not human, nor that abortion is not killing. But a fetus doesn’t have much invested yet, it really doesn’t. The loss of it predominantly affects the pregnant woman who was bearing it; if she decides it needs to be gone, very few other people are in a position to protest that. I will acknowledge the possibility of a comparatively high emotional investment on the part of the biological father, but that’s just in passing; the point is, the life of the fetus is not of particular emotional importance yet to the fetus.

The mother, the pregnant woman, is in a unique situation: this, and only this, is a situation in which it is simultaneously true that there is one person within whose body something grows, and also that there are two people, one inside the body of the other. It is simultaneously true that there are one of her and two of them. The fetus is alive and a person only while simultaneously being a part of the woman’s body. There’s no other directly comparable situation.

Her authority comes naturally from that situation. It is her body; the fact that it is also a life form unto itself doesn’t negate the fact that that life form is still part of her body.

Back to the point #3 stuff: we acknowledge situations where the killing of human life is an acceptable price tag because the consequences of doing otherwise would be worse. You countered with the notion that the fetus, unlike (let’s say) condemned murderers or the soldiers in the opposing army in wartime, are not good candidates for sacrificial lamb. I’m saying the life of a fetus is all potential and very little real, in terms of who fetuses are to themselves. To others, yes, a baby in the womb can be of monumental emotional importance. But usually to the parents, and particularly to the mother in whose body it grows. Were she to be strongly of the intention to have the baby, it would be a gross criminal injustice to forcibly abort her. But the injury would be to her, a violation of her investment. The fetus doesn’t really have any conscious investment to speak of.

[Scylla]

Ahunter:

I believe I know exactly what you mean. It’s a hard thing to say, because if you say it wrong, or you say it to the wrong person, you can end up looking like a monster.

I agree with you, which is why I phrased my post about the helpless as being ‘traditionally’ considered protected the way I did.

The dangerous thing is that you are saying that some lives are worth more than others. This falls into the group of things that everybody knows is true, but is forbidden to admit or say.

It’s easy to get your ass handed to you when you say things that fall into that category.

[AHunter3]

@Scylla

Ahunter:

I believe I know exactly what you mean. It’s a hard thing to say, because if you say it wrong, or you say it to the wrong person, you can end up looking like a monster.

I agree with you, which is why I phrased my post about the helpless as being ‘traditionally’ considered protected the way I did.

The dangerous thing is that you are saying that some lives are worth more than others. This falls into the group of things that everybody knows is true, but is forbidden to admit or say.

It’s easy to get your ass handed to you when you say things that fall into that category.

** nods **

And yet, in taking the position that some lives are “more innocent” than others, the pro-life people (the ones who do that, at any rate) are making the same kind of comparative valorations about the values of different lives, aren’t they?

[Scylla]

Maybe. I’m not sure.

To grossly oversimplify your argument to the point of deniability, let’s say that abortion is ok, Because the life of a fetus is worth a lot less than the life of the mother.

This is not the same as saying you can’t kill one for the benefit of the other.

It’s not the same as saying you can’t kill one to avoid harming the life of the other.

It’s not exactly the same as Saying you can’t screw up both to save one.

Also, I think the pro life argument would likely be that you can’t tell the future. It is not a given that either life would be harmed. Perhaps the mother’s life would be helped by being forced to be a mother and undergoing the miracle of birth. Perhaps both lives would be wonderful where otherwise neither would be if one were terminated.

There is something to that, I think.

Do you follow what I am saying?

[elbows]

Yes, you’re saying you’re a better judge than she is, to determine her future, her ability to parent etc.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@Scylla

Bryan:

Before I go any further, please indulge me and answer a question

Earlier you said; “The significant element is not the nature or labeling of the intrusive item, but the wishes of the person whose body is being intruded upon.“

I took this to mean that you think that whether or not a fetus is a person is dependent on what the mother says. If she says it’s a person, it’s a person. If she says it’s not a person, it’s not.

I now have that ugly feeling that I had just a few posts ago when I said I did not use the word “murder.” Because I now think that what you meant was that it doesn’t matter whether it is a person or not, because it is the women’s choice whether anything be it person, place, or thing resides within her body.

Is it the former, the latter or something else?

The latter. If she doesn’t want it in her body no matter what it is or what is called, I support her right to consult a doctor and pursue methods for removing it.

Anybody can say anything is a “person”. When the state declares it, though, a number of laws and protections come into effect. The value of extending this to fetuses solely to justify an abortion ban has never been made clear to me.

[Esprise_Me]

Scylla, I’ve tried to engage with you honestly, in good faith, but your “bodies are just property” premise is so absurd I’m doubting whether you are doing the same for me. The fact that people who have committed crimes can be incarcerated (community service is an optional lesser alternative; you can always opt for jail instead) has no bearing on whether a woman who has had sex can be compelled to continue a pregnancy against her will. So no, you still haven’t answered my question. Under what other circumstances does one person have the right to use another person’s body without their consent?

[AHunter3]

@Scylla

Maybe. I’m not sure.

To grossly oversimplify your argument to the point of deniability, let’s say that abortion is ok, Because the life of a fetus is worth a lot less than the life of the mother.

This is not the same as saying you can’t kill one for the benefit of the other.

It’s not the same as saying you can’t kill one to avoid harming the life of the other.

It’s not exactly the same as Saying you can’t screw up both to save one.

Also, I think the pro life argument would likely be that you can’t tell the future. It is not a given that either life would be harmed. Perhaps the mother’s life would be helped by being forced to be a mother and undergoing the miracle of birth. Perhaps both lives would be wonderful where otherwise neither would be if one were terminated.

There is something to that, I think.

Do you follow what I am saying?

Keep in mind that I was offering the relative lack of investment of a fetus in its own life as a specific response to the notion that, as you put it,

While everyone understands sacrificing soldiers to war and workers to industry and people dying for the greater good, I’m not sure people are ok with the idea of killing the helpless. They tend to be traditionally exempt from being sacrificial lambs. We don’t send babies and school kids to fight Hitler, et al.

(emphasis added)
In the main argument, I was not at any point saying “abortion is OK because the life of a fetus is worth a lot less than the life of the mother”. I was saying “abortion is OK because allowing pregnant women to abort, thus killing their fetus/embryo/whatever, is by far the lesser evil when compared to the evil of making the experience female one in which you have to remain pregnant if you become pregnant”.

The relative value of the life of a fetus (to itself) is only a factor for counteracting the notion that you subsequently brought up, which was the helplessness or innocence (etc) of the one being killed.

[l0k1]

Most anti abortion activist don’t believe a fertilized egg is a person. The Catholic church objects to fertility treatment as much as they do to birth control and abortion (on paper at least, I’ve never seen Catholics protesting a fertility clinic), but most anti abortionist are fine with fertility treatment. I have some friends, a married couple, they have twins, a boy and a girl. My friends got married and decide to have kinds in their 40s. They weren’t able to conceive, and eventually tried in vitro. The first attempt included 2 embryos, neither implanted. A few months later my friends tried again with 4 embryos, and it worked and now they have twins. My friends likely had a few more embryos on ice if the second try didn’t work.

Do anti abortionists believe that those 6 embryos (plus whatever happened to the ones on ice) are murdered persons? Of course not.

Do they believe that life begins when an egg is fertilized? Of course not.

The question of when life begins is also absurd. Zygotes, babies, persons aren’t built out of lifeless matter, life is a continuum. When they say life, they mean ensoulment, or personhood. Ensoulment is not something that can or should be regulated by a secular government, and is not a scientific question. Personhood is moot when it comes to the fetus, as long as the fetus is unborn and inside the mother. Women have bodily autonomy. So do men. I have a nine-year-old son. If he has some disease and needed my bone marrow to survive, I don’t have to give it to him. Courts can’t compel it, their is no law. If I died in a car accident, my heirs don’t have to give my bone marrow, because even in death I have rights over my body. Everyone in the US who isn’t an organ donor, a doctor can ask your grieving family for your organs, but they can totally say no. Everyone that has never donated blood, people die because of blood shortages.

The Catholics are at least logically consistent. They believe that it’s wrong to interfere with the link between reproduction and sex. Most of the anti abortionist just hate sex, or hate women for having sex, or wanting sex, unless it’s for the sole purpose of making babies. Men can have sex for fun, as long as it’s not with other men. Even their stance on birth control has them now objecting to everything but barrier methods. Unless it’s a barrier, then the birth control is really just an abortion. That’s absurd.

I think that the problem with this OP, other than it’s wordiness, is that the null hypothesis is the wrong one in every assumption.

[QuickSilver]

@Scylla

Also, I think the pro life argument would likely be that you can’t tell the future. It is not a given that either life would be harmed. Perhaps the mother’s life would be helped by being forced to be a mother and undergoing the miracle of birth. Perhaps both lives would be wonderful where otherwise neither would be if one were terminated.

There is something to that, I think.

Perhaps the fetus will grow up to be the person who cures cancer.
Perhaps the fetus will grow up to be the worst sociopathic maniac since Hitler.

This isn’t a persuasive argument in the least. People make decisions with the best information they have at the time they have to make their decision, and often (as is with the case of abortion) you don’t have the luxury of waiting for additional data.

@Scylla

Maybe. I’m not sure.

To grossly oversimplify your argument to the point of deniability, let’s say that abortion is ok, Because the life of a fetus is worth a lot less than the life of the mother.

This is not the same as saying you can’t kill one for the benefit of the other.

It’s not the same as saying you can’t kill one to avoid harming the life of the other.

It’s not exactly the same as Saying you can’t screw up both to save one.

Do you follow what I am saying?

Not even a little. Can you summarize your current position?

[UltraVires]

@Esprise_Me

Scylla, I’ve tried to engage with you honestly, in good faith, but your “bodies are just property” premise is so absurd I’m doubting whether you are doing the same for me. The fact that people who have committed crimes can be incarcerated (community service is an optional lesser alternative; you can always opt for jail instead) has no bearing on whether a woman who has had sex can be compelled to continue a pregnancy against her will. So no, you still haven’t answered my question. Under what other circumstances does one person have the right to use another person’s body without their consent?

I think talking about pregnancy as if the fetus is a squatter or trespasser is a non-sequitur. Laws are human constructs and we have laws against trespassing for property rights purposes because we expect each person to make his own way and stay on his own property, and if he can’t then charitable giving allows him to stay somewhere else.

Pregnancy is sui generis, a wholly different beast, because it is a necessary condition for every human being to live. A status like a trespasser or squatter implies aberrant behavior against the norms of society that must be punished, curtailed, or dissuaded. You cannot say that fetuses are squatters because then every one of us was a squatter. It would be like passing a law that everyone, rich or poor, must break for their very existence. It doesn’t work that way. Laws are passed to channel people into socially acceptable behavior and this view of a pregnancy cannot compel a fetus to seek refuge elsewhere.

Even if we apply the trespassing law, there is the necessity doctrine in common law. If you find a trespasser on your property, you cannot eject him when there is a blizzard outside which would cause him to freeze to death. And it really isn’t a good fit either, because it would be as if the trespasser did not cross the threshold of your property illegally, but was created inside of your house.

And there is also the consent argument. If you have sex, you know that there is a possibility of pregnancy. You have the parts to make a baby, and you invite the other part into your body. Of course, the argument is for consequence free recreational sex but it would be ignoring science in the extreme to say that reproduction is not at least understood to be a part of sex. Continuing the tortured “consent” analogy, it would be like saying you consented to attend a baseball game, but not to be hit by a foul ball. You hope not to be hit by a foul ball, but if you do, you cannot pretend that you were wronged somehow and ask for legal remedies.

I understand the arguments for legal abortion, but this idea of trespass seems very weak to me.

[Esprise_Me]

The fact that every one of us required a woman to endure a pregnancy and childbirth in order for us to come into existence is not an argument against legal abortion. Until recently, every person had to begin with sex; that doesn’t make rape OK. A woman can consent to sex and she can choose to carry a child. No one else gets to make that choice for her. I’m not going to keep arguing about body vs. property. And your baseball analogy misses the mark by a mile. Consenting to sex is not agreeing to carry a pregnancy to term. The analogous situation would be if you went to a baseball game and got hit by a foul ball, and the state denied you appropriate medical treatment for the resulting concussion, knowing your death might result. Oh and people sometimes kidnap people and take them to baseball games against their will and lie about their victims consenting, so as a practical matter, your ban on treatment for concussions will probably end up affecting some people who hate baseball. But you love baseball and would hate to miss out, so screw those people who might get screwed.

[Bryan_Ekers]

@UltraVires

Even if we apply the trespassing law, there is the necessity doctrine in common law. If you find a trespasser on your property, you cannot eject him when there is a blizzard outside which would cause him to freeze to death. And it really isn’t a good fit either, because it would be as if the trespasser did not cross the threshold of your property illegally, but was created inside of your house.

We don’t have to apply trespassing law, but it is among the more useful and relevant analogies, and one that men are more likely to grasp if the challenges of pregnancy remain inconceivable (no pun intended) to them. While there may be conditions under which a trespasser can be ejected, no-one doubts that he can be removed, the landowner is not trapped without remedy.

And it’s irrelevant how the trespasser got onto your property - even a welcomed and invited guest can become a trespasser the moment the landowner decides that he is and the guest refuses to leave, or else they’d be risking permanent tenants every time they hosted a dinner party.