(Abortion) Faulty "Just stop having sex when you wouldn't welcome a baby" - argument

In My Humble Opinion
1

Pro-lifers seem to subscribe to the argument: “Well, then just don’t have sex if a baby would be a problem”.

I’m trying to sense what lies beneath this argument. ( Not the abortion argument - the then stop having sex-argument)

a. People (female and male) who don’t like unmarried sex and would welcome if there would be less pressure to do so, and a greater taboo against it, more punishment to do it?
b. People who like sex, don’t get as much as they would like, and like the idea that now others would get to have less sex, too?

c. Women who feel that if sex outside of marriage is hard to get, men will be more likely to marry?

d. Rich and powerful men, ( but not sexually attractive) who feel that they will be powerful enough to break all of the rules anyway, so in the new situation they’d get all of the females that other men now don’t get anymore? And keep them, because they can make them pregnant and then there’s not much they can do about it?

2

I feel it is the attitude that one should be responsible for themselves, including the children they create. If you can’t raise/afford them you should not engage in the activity that makes them (including sex with barrier methods, as that is known to create children). This is very much in line with many people supporting anti-abort also don’t want pubic services to help the child, and the parent should bear the responsibility.

Now I feel that sentiment is not only cruel and wrong, but designed by God that it can not happen, as sex ‘happens’ by design. Humans can not control it to the degree that they can hold to such a standard, basically allowing people to get together and have children with others of a ‘forbidden’ class.

3

The attitude implies that sex is not a normal biological human function, much closer to eating food and breathing air than it is to, say, listening to music or driving to the shopping mall. Comprehensive sex education takes into account that sex is indeed a normal biological human function, and not some cultural quirk. Which isn’t to say that humans aren’t capable of choosing – obviously we are. But for most adult humans, the choice is how, when, where, and with whom – not whether to have sex or to not have sex.

Of course this doesn’t apply to every individual – there are many folks who don’t consider sex part of their normal functioning, and that’s perfectly fine and okay.

4

I’m not sure what the question is.

If one takes as a given that abortion is something to be avoided if at all possible - without taking any extreme positions like disregarding the health, the age, or the willingness of the woman to carry a fetus to term - then that’s the obvious, logical conclusion: the only 100% way to avoid a pregnancy is to avoid having sex.

To me, that doesn’t mean “don’t have sex, full stop”, it means “don’t have sex without birth control, but be aware that birth control methods are never 100%, so don’t act like if you get pregnant that it was an unforeseeable circumstance beyond your control.”

Which is exactly how my GF and I behaved for years before marrying and setting about having children intentionally. We discussed it before ever engaging in the intimate tango, and agreed that neither of us would want to abort a pregnancy, should one occur. She was very clear that she would not do so, which I appreciated, and was on board with.

We had sex with birth control for many years without incident. I don’t know if that is “lucky” or simply “not unlucky”, but that’s neither here nor there.

To me, having an abortion should be a measure of last resort, in extremis; I find it distasteful, to put it mildly, as a routine form of backup birth control. But I leave that up to the woman’s choice. What it should not be is an unthinking choice.

I am amazingly glad my GF-now-wife had the forethought to put that issue on the table at Stage Zero. “If we have sex and I get pregnant, I am carrying the baby to term. Are you prepared for that?” Is something every man should consider as a possibility, and then to be honest with himself and with the woman about the answer, and then to act accordingly: “Yes, and I’d support the child”, “Yes, but you’d be on your own”, “No, I can’t be in that position”.

As would be the opposite, for the woman: “if I get pregnant by you…”, would she say “…I would not keep the child (but would give it up for adoption, perhaps to me)”, or “…I would abort it?” And would either statement be OK with me, as the man? After all, equally important as part of a “woman’s right to choose” is indeed “to choose life”, despite that phrase’s use as an anti-abortion-rights slogan.

That’s one of the things I bring up to “anti-choice activists” from time to time. I support a woman’s right to choose, exactly because I know three women who were almost, or in fact, not given the choice… NOT to have an abortion. And one of the things Planned Parenthood does, in addition to giving medical and psychological advice about and administering the procedure of having an abortion, is to get the woman alone in a room for a long period of time, to make sure it IS her choice.

5

Thomas Malthus, the guy who argued that the increase in population would lead to resource depletion, saw the solution to the population problem in his day in “moral restraint”. By this he meant delayed marriage and, for the already married, sexual abstinence. It’s true that contraceptives were nowhere near as good or reliable in those days, and clearly he couldn’t see any mortally acceptable alternatives in his day. But relying on people to not have sex outside marriage, and hoping that married people will willingly stop having sex for the good of society as a whole is not a realistic solution.

6

This argument I don’t understand at all. Reproduction is a normal biological function, and sex is a part of it. If you’re having sex but doing something to prevent reproduction (be it birth control or abortion), then you’re interfering with a normal biological function. And, OK, “natural” is not the same thing as “moral”, so maybe there’s no problem with interfering with a normal biological function… but in that case, on what grounds does one complain that abstinence is unnatural?

7

I don’t think abstinence is “unnatural”, just that the “stop having sex…” attitude implies abstinence-only education, which is fighting an unwinnable battle against biology. Comprehensive sex ed takes biology into account.

8

That’s not what I hear from the anti-abortion rights crowd, at least not commonly. Much more often it’s “don’t have unprotected sex” - which makes sense until one considers the failure rate of certain methods, and the inability for health reasons of some women to use oral contraception.

The meme that women have abortions in lieu of using proper birth control is a grotesque exaggeration at best.

9

Risk of pregnancy was a huge part of my decision to stay celibate. There were other reasons; a religious upbringing among Jehovah’s Witnesses, and non-stop sexual harassment at school upon adolescence putting me off the whole intimate relationship thing. One thing I truly understood about myself at a very young age was that I did NOT want any children.

My solution was to become a faux-sexual, or having invisible lovers. I have never regretted this decision.

As it happens, I believe that abortion should remain legal. But I consider having an abortion outside of medical necessity to be immoral. I consider it immoral on the same level as having an adulterous affair or being a white supremacist . It’s something that I would never do, but I don’t believe others who do so should be prosecuted by law. It’s a personal decision.

And yes, if you do not want children, the wise choices would be to seek sterilization, only do sexual acts that cannot impregnate someone, or remain celibate.

It can be done. I know. I’m already there.

10

I would say that promoting any sort of birth control is a “battle against biology”. Trying to promote abstinence-only birth control is more specifically a battle against psychology, and psychology is a subset of biology.

As to how winnable the battle is, I suspect that in the long run, no form of birth control is a winnable battle: If it’s possible for a genetic (or memetic) trait to make people prefer not to use condoms, or the Pill, or whatever, then evolution will make that trait more common. One might even argue that the religious opposition to “unnatural” birth control, where it occurs, is a manifestation of this: Catholics are a lot more numerous nowadays than Shakers.

11

There’s really two things that make the argument ‘just don’t have sex’ unrealistic and a loser on its face.

A) Some human drives are very strong. Sex is one of them. Yes, some people are celibate by choice but that’s a very small percentage. People have been trying to prevent teens from banging for a long, long time and…well…it’s not working.

B) Humans are very VERY bad at risk assessment. There’s a small chance that any particular set of wigglers will hit a target, given the opportunity. But a small chance is not NO chance. So humans will have unprotected, pregnancy-risking sex while convincing themselves it’ll never happen.

Combine those two points and the ‘just don’t have sex’ to prevent abortions argument fails in the face of standard human biology and psychology.

Or, to quote Jill Sobule, “What was I thinking? I wasn’t thinking at all.”

Honestly, if any group truly wants to severely cut down on the number of abortions they should promote basic sex ed for all and make birth control measures - both barrier and hormonal - available to all, especially teens. Their moral argument against abortion fails - and they reveal that it’s really about control of individual’s sexuality - when these things are not combined.

12

Is this thread giving anyone else Monty Python flashbacks?

13

I think some of it comes from a presumption that the sole or primary function of sex is procreation. This is true in some species; but it’s clearly not true in all species. Sex for humans serves multiple social functions, as well as providing pleasure.

Certainly some people can do without it; and for some of those doing without it, the lack isn’t much of a burden. For others, it poses a huge burden. Saying ‘well I’m celibate and I’m fine so everyone else can do it too!’ ignores the massive differences between human beings. Everybody Is Not You.

And, as a matter of practical fact, expecting humans in general not to have sex just plain doesn’t work. People have sex outside of societal rules even in societies that punish such acts heavily. People have sex even if they think they’re going to go to hell for it.

– I think there’s very often also an underlying presumption that there’s just something essentially Wrong about sex. I’m not sure how much of this comes from Paul of Tarsus, and how much from what seems to me to be some people’s attitude that there’s something essentially Wrong about bodies, with all those fluids and all those arational demands.

In terms of individual responsibility for consequences: most people seem to apply that to some kinds of consequences and not others. People get into cars all the time despite the fact that they know there are car accidents. Taking reasonable precautions to prevent them is one thing, and in fact we require those to be available, nobody’s trying to make it hard to get seat belts – but we don’t say ‘well, if you don’t want to get into an accident, just stay home’ – even if the people were driving not to get to work, but in order to do something they thought would be fun.

– Chronos, what works in evolution isn’t ‘give birth to the greatest possible number of children’. It’s ‘have your genes passed on to later generations’ – which has more to do with how many children (yours and/or your parents’ and/or your siblings’) grow to adulthood and have children themselves. Using birth control, or for that matter abortion, at some stages in one’s life can easily lead to raising more children to adulthood over one’s life as a whole; so the willingness to do so probably isn’t going to be selected against, even if it also leads to some people having no children.

The Shakers didn’t have any kids, which is another issue entirely. (They also probably had trouble getting new recruits because they didn’t have any sex.) A high percentage of people who use birth control, and of people who have abortions, do also have children.

14

I’d say that’s about as in-touch with modern reality as any other advice based on ancient mythology.

Let’s face it, the ancient religions supported variations on “Go forth, multiply and spread my Word amongst the peoples” because, on a flat earth with endless lands and resources to commandeer, conquer, and colonize, that was a way to try and become the dominant culture – like a giant game of Go, the winner is whoever has expanded into the majority of the world when the game is done.

So “If you don’t want kids, don’t have sex” is a bit like saying “If you don’t want to get fat, don’t eat.”

The attitude also fits very nicely with the monotheistic Commandment against adultery along with the interpretation that any sex outside of marriage – including prior-to-marriage – is considered% adulterous. And, of course, a marriage is only valid if it’s recognized (i.e. performed) by the Church – which gives the Church a lot of leverage to impose conformity and exercise control. So, if the clerics-in-charge don’t approve of your choice of mates, any kids you have could be damned as soon as they’re conceived. And, as some kind of logical step, some therefore consider the creation of children to be the purpose of marriage.

Note that this, overall, is a policy against lust, which is considered a cardinal sin* amongst the children of Abraham. For some reason, enjoyment of the body is a bad thing, brought about by breaking The rule (don’t eat that) and Woman-kind’s& weakness/treachery, and Elohim’s punishment thereof.
But while we’ve made a lot of progress in areas like psychological approaches to sexuality and biological reproductive (or prevention thereof) ability, we still seem to be millennia behind the times in terms of social views and behaviors where sex is involved. Only relatively recently (1900’s) have most nations updated age-of-marriage laws to an average of 18-years-old#, up from twelve-years-old as established by Roman law in Caesar’s time. And while condoms have a long and fascinating history stretching back to the dark ages, other [proven] forms of effective contraception (blockage devices and, later, chemical preventatives) weren’t available until the mid-1800’s. Meanwhile, the norms and values surrounding sex and the control or autonomy of women are still tied to medieval knowledge and views that seem more concerned with damage-to-property-and-prestige than with a woman’s physical or mental well-being.

For the most part, though, it seems out-of-touch with the biological realities of human beings. My wife has noted that even the people she serves, those with developmental disabilities and severe mental challenges still have a libido, whether or not they understand it or comprehend the social consequences of their behaviors and, as she noted during that conversation, regardless of whether or not their parents want to recognize and deal with that fact.

“If you don’t want kids, don’t have sex” sounds a lot like “If you don’t want to die, don’t live.” because it happens to everyone whether they want it or not. And when the human body starts ramping up the hormone factories, those biological urges get pretty urgent. Denying that they exist and denying that some people don’t resist is like denying the fact that people age and die.

On the other hand, I don’t want to go to Hell.
So I won’t subscribe to monotheism@.
–G!
% And, apparently, some of the stricter adherents consider lustful thoughts to be adulterous behaviors.

  • Contrast that with the Hindu view that sex is a beautiful union, worth devoting a whole collection of sutras to it. The Japanese also have a book devoted to advice on sexual technique.
    & At its roots, therefore, monotheists blame the Third Wife (and all women thereafter) for humankind’s expulsion from paradise and the resulting, current, miserable situation.

Meanwhile, age-of-consent laws, which are not quite the same as the marriage laws, have risen from as “low as 7” [yes, an extreme example] to “as low as 14” which is curiously still well below the age-of-marriage.

@ I have my own paradigm of non-reality; it just doesn’t include a place like Hell.

15

It definitely comes from the idea that the only reason for sex is procreation. However, I don’t think that idea came from biology. I think it comes from linking pleasure with danger. The more pleasurable an activity is, the easier it is to get addicted and not want to do anything else. This may have been modeled based on alcohol or other drugs. Or even just mass orgies, which at least the Bible seems to think were really common (though claiming the OUTSIDERS are doing things you are taught is wrong is common, so it’s not entirely clear if things were as bad. But sex cults, where you had sex to worship a god or goddess did exist.)

I could definitely see people believing that the risk of having a baby is the only thing that would keep women from not having sex all the time and not contributing to the rest of society. I mean, women don’t have a refractory period.

Of course, that may conflict with how little people seemed to know about female sexuality. The Old Testament doesn’t even consider the idea that a woman might want to have sex with another woman. And a woman’s value is specifically based on her ability to breed in many stories.

But, then again, until we had reliable birth control, the idea may not have needed to exist.

16

Evolution knows nothing about birth control. If sex were only tied to the possibility of reproduction, men and women would only get aroused when a woman was fertile. So we clearly have evolved so that sex is an end to itself.
Which does not mean that abstinence is unnatural, since humans have a range of natural sexual behaviors, some of which are as unlikely to get a woman pregnant as abstinence. But sex drive is real, so laws assuming that we can suppress our sex drives, in general, are absurd.

17

I was thinking of this analogy also. I’d extend it. The argument mentioned in the OP extended to cars would say that insurance should not cover a car wreck since if you didn’t want a car wreck you wouldn’t drive. Driving in a safe car is no excuse.
In fact you shouldn’t be covered if you get hit by a car as a pedestrian - kind of no abortion for rape victims analogy.

18

If people really thought the argument in the OP was the main argument against abortion, they would have no trouble with abortion for victims of rape. That they do shows the argument is bullshit.
If the men responsible for these laws really had such low sex drives as to think telling people (including married people) to abstain, I could kind of understand it. But I kind of doubt this is true.
And of course people who buy the argument should be behind all kinds of birth control to reduce the risk. But they mostly aren’t. So I don’t buy the argument as being sincere for a second.

19

(Enjoying) sex is an intrinsic part of being human. Anti-choice people seem to forget this.

20

“Just don’t have sex” should really just be “don’t have vaginal intercourse.” There’s plenty of sex to be had with other people that just involves hands/mouth.