Abortion: Why don't pro-choicers just say, "It kills a person, but it's a unique circumstance?"

Great Debates
1

Per the new GD rules, I’m hoping this can be a thread for a narrow focus on just one aspect of the abortion debate, without morphing into the same old abortion debate we’ve had for decades - hope the mods can clamp down on any hijacking:

For decades, there has been this ongoing war of words over whether a fetus is a person or not, with some saying it is, and some saying “a fetus is just a piece of human tissue,” and some holding other views. But surprisingly rarely do you hear the pro-choice side ever just say, "Yes, abortion kills a person, but it’s a unique circumstance not fully analogous to anything else."

Because if the pro-choice side ever *did *use such an argument, it would essentially shut up most pro-life arguments in one fell swoop. It would be acknowledging the pro-life argument (that a fetus is a person) while also brushing it aside at the same time. The pro-life side would then have a hard time making much further argument.

I know that not all pro-choicers argue that “a fetus is just a lump of human tissue, like an appendix;” indeed, many don’t. But for the many who do, this claim immediately runs into cognitive dissonance - nobody mourns the surgical removal of a uterine tumor or an appendix, but plenty of women grieve a miscarriage or regretted abortion, because a fetus represents something that a tumor, cyst or appendix doesn’t - it represents potential birth, an individual who could have exhibited his/her own personality, lived a life, done things, etc. There is plainly a clear difference.

By saying, “Yes, a fetus is a person, but abortion is a unique circumstance,” the pro-choice side would avoid this cognitive-dissonance problem while still justifying abortion at the same time. It is a unique circumstance because the fetus is occupying the mother’s body and relies on it for survival and nourishment, etc. Those who would compare abortion to, say, the Holocaust would then be told that Holocaust victims weren’t like fetuses in utero.

For the record, I’m pro-life and I’m not suggesting that the pro-choice side actually endorse such an argument as presented above. But it surprises me that few pro-choicers have or do use this argument. Because it would essentially put an end to much of the current ongoing debate.

2

I do exactly that.

I agree completely. ETA: thanks for starting this discussion.

3

I’ve been trying to argue this for years. If it’s a person or a piece of tissue is irrelevant.

I analogize a woman’s uterus as a sovereign nation in which she is the supreme ruler of.

4

That isn’t the point. The point of “Pro Choice” is that a fundamental right of all women is to completely control their own reproductive processes. So, in answer to your question, THAT is why “Pro Choice” doesn’t “ever just say” or address that. It is not germane to our position.

5

How would this help the pro-choice position? You’d have to explain why killing a person should be legal in this instance when it isn’t in others. And what about the pro-choice people are pro-choice because they don’t believe that the aborted fetus is “a person”?

6

You thought of it and it didn’t change your mind. Yes, if everyone just agreed a fetus was a person, that would end the debate on whether it’s a person. Bravo. How does that help the pro-choice movement?

7

I argue this: It’s okay to kill a person who is using your body without your permission and that a woman has more rights than a fetus. Then the pro-life side argues that any woman who has sex is giving permission to any fetus that reults from sex. When I ask them who has more rights the woman or the fetus, it’s always “the baby.” And if she’s pregnant by rape, then the baby shouldn’t die cause it didn’t do anything wrong.

I do wish the pro-life crowd would call itself anti-abortion and stop calling the pro-choice crowd pro-aborion.

8

The same reason why pro-life people don’t say “Our political beliefs are founded on our belief in an imaginary supernatural being.”

People need to realize that their opponents in an argument are probably just as sincere in their position as you are in yours. They don’t secretly agree with you but lie about it.

You may believe that having an abortion is murder. But that doesn’t mean that the people who say they don’t believe that are lying.

You may be an atheist. But that doesn’t mean the people who say they are religious are lying.

9

It’s germane in the sense that it is the primary opposition raised to abortion - you have abortion-opponents arguing that abortion is the killing of a person. So when countering one’s opponents, the pro-choice crowd has to address their arguments and counter them - so it is germane.

As for “a fundamental right of all women is to completely control their own reproductive processes” - that’s also a different way of saying the same thing said in my OP - just phrased differently. A pro-choicer could phrase it as, “Yes, a fetus is a person, but a woman’s right to control her body still reigns paramount.” Phrased differently, but same argument.

10

I think both sides of the abortion debate are slowly coming to a consensus on what a fetus is - the pro-life side because they’ve always held that a fetus is a person, and the pro-choice side because it is - first of all, irrelevant to them, as you point out - and secondly, because the notion that a fetus is just a clump of tissue like an appendix has always been absurd. An appendix has no potential to grow up to go to school, college, work a job, have a family, vote, use Facebook, drive a car, etc.

11

Its a tough subject. On one hand, if she wasn’t raped, she chose to have sex, so its not the baby went commando and took over her uterus in a coup. So its not a real person but it is if she wants it. Hm.

12

What Thudlow Boink says - in what way is it a unique circumstance?

Once you say it’s a person, you need a justification why you are not treating it like another person, especially an innocent person who hasn’t done anything wrong. And then you need to show why that justification doesn’t apply to other circumstances. Why, for instance, you can’t kill a newborn.

Regards,
Shodan

13

It’s unique because in no other circumstance is a person literally occupying another person’s body. A newborn is not physically attached to someone. It does not pose a direct physical burden to the mother (in the sense of, being inside her.)

14

As I ask the anti-abortion crowd “If you are going to let a fetus use a woman’s body without her permission, why not a rapist?” When they point out the fetus doesn’t have a choice, I say “Well, neither does the rapist. She was wearing a tight skirt. She was walking alone after dark. What did she expect.” Since some of them see rape as the woman’s fault, they have to agree with it.

15

A fetus or embryo is simultaneously alive and human and a part of the woman’s own body. There’s no comparable situation so it doesn’t fall into a broader category. You can’t directly distill the “right attitude” based on how you feel about the overall category. It’s uniquely its own case.

Meanwhile, though, we do recognize some situations where the killing of human life is not regarded as murder and/or morally wrong. War, self-defense, the defense of others, etc. Pregnancy & abortion does NOT fall into any of those categories (see prev paragraph) but I bring these up to demonstrate that just because something constitutes the killing of human life does not automatically make it murder or a moral failure.

16

A non-viable fetus has no chance of growing into a human being either. Whether the fetus is non-viable because it’s defective from the get go (and approximately half of all fetuses are like this and basically every heterosexually active woman has likely had at least one miscarriage without ever knowing it) or because the woman it’s inside doesn’t want to go through a pregnancy is immaterial. The fetus is non-viable. All fetusus are non-viable until they can survive outside a uterus on their own and currently the record is about 21 weeks gestation. Up to that point, a fetus is only hanging on by luck and good wishes. They are not people, they are potential people, just like every egg and sperm is half a potential person. Nature is profligate and produces more potential than ever makes it to actuality. This is not a tragedy, this is simply a scientific reality and the faster people get over their stupid sentimentality over TEH POOR IDDOE BABBIES and their irrelevant religious manias the better.

17

I don’t make this argument because it’s irrelevant to my beliefs about abortion, which are about the right to control one’s own body, including access and usage by other entities (persons or otherwise) to one’s body.

I think it would be spectacularly ineffective and even counterproductive because it would lead to pro-lifers saying something like “See? Even pro-choicers admit that it’s murder!”

18

Why is the onus on pro-choice to make the argument palatable to pro-lifers? Since no pro-choicer (AFAIK) would dictate to a pro-lifer what they should do with their body and reproductive decisions, what’s wrong with simply telling them to fuck off and mind their own goddamn business? No further justification needed or owed.

19

Yes, abortion kills a fetus, but it’s a unique circumstance not fully analogous to anything else. If you want to arbitrarily label the fetus a “person”, be my guest, but it doesn’t change anything.

Now, there are indeed circumstances where one can legally kill a person, as the label is generally used, even a fully-formed sentient, walking, talking person. If we decided that, say, we were going to remove the arbitrary level as it suits us, i.e. if you break into someone’s house, you are no longer a “person” and thus if the homeowner shoots you, they’re not killing a person. This doesn’t change anything either.

Labeling is just trying to confuse the map for the place. One major reason a pro-choice person should not concede the “person” label (or not concede that it has any significance whatsoever) is that the pro-life person will immediately try to use the label to justify legislation.

But let’s assume we did and said “Okay, a fetus is a person. Now what are you going to *do *with this information, pro-lifer? What have you gained, or what do you think you have gained?”

20

When I ask a pro-life person what should a pregnant woman do if she doen’t want to raise a child and doesn’t want to give her child up for adoption, I get a blank stare. Ditto if I say it’s the child of a rapist who wants paternal rights and she doesn’t want to be tied to her rapist for the rest of the child’s life.

My favorite pro-life saying is “Everything Hitler did in Germany was legal.” Yes, and Hitler was a Christian who was NOT pro-choice. Indeed, the anti-abortion crowd shares a lot of Hitler’s beliefs.