Assume that in the future, embryos are conceived in a test tube and then transferred to a special incubation “oven”, where they will spend the next 9 months before being born. At no time does the embryo or fetus spend any time inside a woman.
In this hypothetical future, what should the abortion rights of the parents be?
[ol]
[li]Should they be allowed to abort the fetus before it exits the oven? [/li][li]Should they be allowed to abort at any time prior to the 9 months, or only before a certain threshold?[/li][li]Should the mother and father have the same rights in this matter? [/li][li]Should the baby be allowed to be aborted if only one of the parents wants to abort it, or do both have to not want it for it to be aborted?[/li][li]If parents are allowed to abort the fetus that is in this oven, on what legal principle would this right to abort be based?[/li][/ol]
I may be wrong, but it seems to me that many who are pro-choice today, and use the “it’s my body, I can do whatever I want with it” argument, simply want to have an “I don’t want to become a parent” right, and since AFAIK there isn’t such a right, hang their hat on something with the same effect in today’s world, the “it’s my body, I can do whatever I want with it” argument.
If people who use the “it’s my body, I can do whatever I want with it” argument do it solely for the argument itself, and aren’t using it as a proxy for a missing “I don’t want to become a parent” right, they should be fine with the absence of abortion rights if the fetus is in some special incubation oven from day 1.
So, I’m interested in hearing the responses to the above questions, especially from pro-choice people.
I’m pro-choice. I think that people do have a right not to become parents - but obviously there is a point where this right vanishes. Arguably by the fetus’s third birthday.
So, that said, on to your questions, and assuming that by “abort” you mean “kill the developing fetus”:
[ol]
[li]No[/li][li]No[/li][li]Yes (which isn’t saying much)[/li][li]No[/li][li]N/A[/li][/ol]
Now - like I said, people do have the right not to become parents. In this situation that probably translates to “you can’t take people’s genetic material and put it in an oven without their permission”, though.
I would be pretty much indifferent to however the government wants to regulate something like that. My concern with abortion rights is in protecting the privacy and bodily integrity of women. If it’s all external, I don’t give a rat’s ass either way.
I’d guess that the company who owns and operated the “oven” will want to get signed releases from the contributors of the genetic material to fend off legal hassles down the line. Also, during the incubation process, possibly the fetus will be treated like any relative who is on extensive life-support, with the decision whether or not to continue left to the next of kin.
The topic raises some interesting questions, I just don’t see any oven-company going ahead until most of them are resolved, lest they risk their investment in endless legal battles.
In this situation it would be feasible to have pre-birth “adoption.” The contract the parents sign with the oven keepers would determine who pays for the cycle - I assume that the company would want money up front, to be refunded if something happened to the fetus. In any case the fetus is now living independently of the mother, so the situation is more like that after the birth, and the same rules can apply.
I guess we could do away with some of the legal/risk issues that an oven-operating company might have, by saying that for this hypothetical, the incubation oven is something the couple owns, and is at home.
Wow, we’re going from 40 million people living below the poverty threshold in America alone to the money and technology for ‘oven’ babies? Great! I can’t imagine how I would feel about abortion as I’m sure we would all be raised with completely different perspectives in this world where we’ve got the money, time and know-how to do this (rather than one where we can’t even pay a woman to take the day off work when she’s giving birth).
It’s too bad you used the word “oven” instead of “pod” in your scenario since it sounds like Nazi genocide.
Anyways… I was thinking of any scenarios today (even superficially similar) that can be looked at for related conflict of morals. One example would be surrogate mothers and abortion.
Anyways… I suppose that if the parents found out the incubation oven was defective and it would produce a retarded baby, that would pressure many parents to “abort.” I’m sure dozens of difficult moral dilemmas could be constructed to stress test the ability of parents to carry the incubation all the way through the end.
I read the OP that all reproduction takes place in these ovens; the first paragraph is pretty unqualified in this regard. This would seem to preclude there being any ‘accidents’ - and it also means that you could only have kids if you could afford an oven. Which itself might cure that poverty problem in a generation or two, if the ovens were expensive enough.
That is going to be quite the change over. I imagine it’ll involve something like… [plumbs nerdish parts of brain]… sperm and eggs being harvested during childhood then distributed once you pass some sort of parental test and funds assessment or something? And everyone’s sterilized, with the poor people kept as lonely chattel or permanent nannies and teachers or something? Again,this sounds too foreign for me to grasp when American preemies cost $26 billion a year.
To address the issues you both bring up, we could change the first line of the OP to
That is, we don’t need all of society to participate in this.
These ovens could be invented and cost so much that only, say, Bill Gates and a couple other people in the world can use them.
However, assuming someone like Bill Gates and his wife do choose to buy such a machine and use it as described in the OP, then, how would you answer the questions in the OP, as they relate to the rights of these people who chose to have the baby this way?
Forget nannies - in a generation they’ll be gone. Or rather, the poor class would be composed of people who ‘fell down’ from the middle class, always having had parents who themselves were sufficiently wealthy.
Of course, all this is assuming the ovens are expensive, which is not in the OP. Maybe the government hands them out for free to mitigate the loss to society from inconveniences to pregnant women, and to shut the pro-choice people up.
ETA: Or what Polerus just said too. As I noted, this was always kinda a hijack and I’m perfectly willing to drop it. (Though I will add I find it hard to buy the “it’s too different - I can’t imagine it” thing.)
Or maybe it creates a whole new level of poverty. Compare this oven thing to the cost of having a preemie spend 9 months in an neonatal ICU. Parents could easily need a special mortgage to pay for it, and then be indebted for 30 years.
As mentioned above, it would probably cost a lot extra to “design” each child, making it more like an investment.
So the real question should be, “what happens when the parents can’t afford the upkeep?”
Is the state required to adopt the oven and pay for the fetus to continue to develop?
Your outrage is a bit late, considering surrogacy. I think renting a machine to incubate a baby is no more, and perhaps less, objectionable than renting a womb. And is it that different from incubator which keep extreme premies alive?
This seems like one of the lesser reasons to be mad about income disparity - there are tons of better ones.
The question does seem to change from “can they abort it?” to “can they divest themselves of ownership/parentage of it?” Which is implied by the OP - the notion that the whole point of the pro-choice position is that they just want to be able to ditch the fetus and accompanying responsibility.
On that front, I think that adoption should be allowed, even of fetuses still in oven. Though for real fun - what if these things are powered by wall plugs, and if you unplug them, even for a moment, the fetus dies? Do your sovereign rights over your property allow you to evict the fetus, even though that requires ‘cutting the cord’?
On that front I’m dubious…though I could see arguments either way.
I also believe than anyone has the right to not be a parent.
I can’t imagine why anyone would want to kill a fetus in an oven, assuming that they have the same legal rights that people have now to give up their parental rights and responsibilities to either the state or an adoptive parent.
You’re wrong. People certainly do have the right, even after pregnancy (arguably, women have this right more than men do) to not become a parent. It’s called adoption, and the whole oven baby concept would only make it easier.
In the oven baby scenario, looking at the essence of it and not picking out all the holes in the story, of course the oven babies should not be able to be aborted at any time, assuming there is still sufficient demand from adoptive parents. Someone else wants it, so you have no right to kill it, as it isn’t hurting you in any way to keep it alive. This is not true of the current parasitic relationship fetuses have to their mothers.
