# Are You a Good Person? Documentary that discusses this subject and Abortion. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 21, 2011, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998 "2011-12-21T21:17:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 23
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [January 12, 2012, 11:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/442 "2012-01-12T23:18:46Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > Man, what the \*\*\*\* is wrong with people’s reading comprehension skills around here? > > Now, before I respond further, I want to make sure I understand this correctly-- are you saying that human = person? Because, personally, I do hope that’s what you’re saying :D. So before you continue to proliferate, you are saying that killing a human zygote, a one celled life, is just as wrong as killing a baby living outside the mother? ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 4:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/443 "2012-01-13T04:13:59Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > . . . To give a terrible example, would a baby born with only autonomous functions but no higher brain functions be a human and not a person? . . . Of course, once born, it doesn’t do any harm for him or her to be treated as a person. The tougher question (for some) would be what if this condition were discovered in the fetus at various early stages of development. So, perhaps paradoxically, I’d say that the parents of the former baby could, if they really insisted, keep it alive on life-support machinery for as long as they desired, whereas the mother of the latter could have an abortion without any moral qualms. Who would be so cruel as to insist that she bear to term? ---
**Author:** ![Untoward\_Parable](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/u/51bf81/32.png) [@Untoward\_Parable](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Untoward_Parable)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/444 "2012-01-13T04:58:58Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Of course, once born, it doesn’t do any harm for him or her to be treated as a person. > > The tougher question (for some) would be what if this condition were discovered in the fetus at various early stages of development. > > So, perhaps paradoxically, I’d say that the parents of the former baby could, if they really insisted, keep it alive on life-support machinery for as long as they desired, whereas the mother of the latter could have an abortion without any moral qualms. Who would be so cruel as to insist that she bear to term? This scenario does actually happen, sometimes the mother decides to bear it to term for the organs to be donated but that should be her choice. She is not obligated to be an organ incubator. This is the thing, there are many shades of gray in the abortion issue, but most prolifers just can’t handle subtle or even not subtle at all distinctions. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 4:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/445 "2012-01-13T04:59:28Z")
A significant percentage of fertilized eggs cannot even implant and grow into a pregnancy. Is the expulsion of a fertilized egg that results in a chemical pregnancy the same thing as the murder of a human being? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 5:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/446 "2012-01-13T05:18:42Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > I wonder what would happen if I were to go into some thread around here about gays and say that gays aren’t entitled to the same rights as all other humans? I would probably be beset upon by hundreds of angry posters declaring how I’m a “bigot” or something like that. Funny how that would work out. For my part, I’d be curious how you’d justify such a claim. ---
**Author:** ![martu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@martu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/martu)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/447 "2012-01-13T10:13:44Z")
> [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > So before you continue to proliferate, you are saying that killing a human zygote, a one celled life, is just as wrong as killing a baby living outside the mother? He is avoiding this question and he has skipped over my Blastocyst post and do you know why? Because it shows the nonsense of his position. Anti abortionists can make a compelling emotional argument (to some) when they are talking about something that at least looks like a baby but a clump of cells less than 0.1mm across? Not so much. So here is the question again - **OMG** do you think that a clump of cells 01.mm across should have more rights than a full grown woman? And no avoiding the question about more\same rights, if the clump of cells can use the woman’s body against her will it has more rights than her over her body. ---
**Author:** ![biddee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@biddee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biddee)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 12:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/448 "2012-01-13T12:28:26Z")
> [@martu](#): > > He is avoiding this question and he has skipped over my Blastocyst post and do you know why? Because it shows the nonsense of his position. Anti abortionists can make a compelling emotional argument (to some) when they are talking about something that at least looks like a baby but a clump of cells less than 0.1mm across? Not so much. > > So here is the question again - **OMG** do you think that a clump of cells 01.mm across should have more rights than a full grown woman? And no avoiding the question about more\same rights, if the clump of cells can use the woman’s body against her will it has more rights than her over her body. That was basically the same question I asked that he said that he had answered…he has never answered this. He keeps saying that it should have the same rights but avoids the issue of the fact that the cells HAVE to be hosted by a woman before they can become a baby. ---
**Author:** ![monavis](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e0b2c6/32.png) [@monavis](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monavis)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 2:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/449 "2012-01-13T14:11:54Z")
> [@biddee](#): > > That was basically the same question I asked that he said that he had answered…he has never answered this. He keeps saying that it should have the same rights but avoids the issue of the fact that the cells HAVE to be hosted by a woman before they can become a baby. I had 2 mis-carriages years ago,I could not see a baby and didn’t feel I lost one,I was very sick for a long time after that. Apparently the fertile egg had a flaw and couldn’t survive even though in the one case I spent 10 days in the hospital trying to hold on to it. No one can look at a frozen embryo and say’OH, what a cute baby! If men are so worried about the human life that is lost then theyy should remember even when there is a conception many human sperms that contain human life are lost. One way to try to rule over a woman is to try to make her conceive and carry a fertile egg even though it is her life that they don’t care to consider. Thankfully the majority of men don’t do this. Maybe they want all women to wear Burkas and would like the right to beat a woman etc. like in some other countries? ---
**Author:** ![biddee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@biddee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biddee)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 4:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/450 "2012-01-13T16:37:46Z")
> [@monavis](#): > > I had 2 mis-carriages years ago,I could not see a baby and didn’t feel I lost one,I was very sick for a long time after that. Apparently the fertile egg had a flaw and couldn’t survive even though in the one case I spent 10 days in the hospital trying to hold on to it. I have also had 2 miscarriages, one at 9 weeks and the other at 11 weeks. Like you, I never felt like I lost a human being. I was sad that I lost a _potential_ baby that I would have loved to have nurtured but I certainly didn’t grieve like I lost a child. I have a living child and I know that if I lost her it would be a totally different matter. In both cases the egg didn’t develop properly but I did not spontaneously abort either of them. With the first one I had a D&C, with the second my doctor offered me the abortion pill. Unfortunately it did not work properly and not all of the ‘products of conception’ were expelled which lead to me hemorrhaging and almost dying three weeks later. It is a fact that almost 25% of pregnancies result in miscarriage. I don’t see abortion (especially first trimester abortion) any more significant than a miscarriage. Painful for a woman but ultimately a choice they should be able to make for themselves. I just don’t think that people like \*\*OMG \*\*ever think of what would happen to the unwanted children that women would be forced to bear if abortion was made illegal. IF the mother even looks after herself during the pregnancy and the child is born healthy, what then? The thing is, both pro-choice and pro-life people both want to see the incidences of abortion go down. I believe that with more and proper health and sex education, better and cheaper access to family planning clinics and free contraceptives, I believe that you would see that. Women need to take charge of their reproductive health and prevent conception. When I was a young woman in South Africa, we had free access to family planning clinics. We got the pill for free, condoms were free, and on the one occasion when my birth control failed I got the morning after pill. Abortions were and I believe still are legal up to the end of the first trimester with no fuss. I don’t get why it is such a huge platform and dividing point for politicians. I don’t want to hijack this thread but I would love to know **OMG’s** position on gay marriage because if he is assigning the same rights to an unborn clump of cells as every other human being then surely gay people should be given the right to marry each other. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 5:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/451 "2012-01-13T17:35:04Z")
> [@Trinopus](#): > > Of course, once born, it doesn’t do any harm for him or her to be treated as a person. You can try to treat it as a person, but it is not going to respond as a person does. It will never recognize its mothers face. It will never laugh when tickled. As for harm, how about stress and expense? I’m certainly not saying the state should force the removal of life support to save money; it should be up to the parents. > [@](#): > > The tougher question (for some) would be what if this condition were discovered in the fetus at various early stages of development. > > So, perhaps paradoxically, I’d say that the parents of the former baby could, if they really insisted, keep it alive on life-support machinery for as long as they desired, whereas the mother of the latter could have an abortion without any moral qualms. Who would be so cruel as to insist that she bear to term? Absolutely. ---
**Author:** ![Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/7ba0ec/32.png) [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Omg_a_Black_Conservative)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/452 "2012-01-13T18:00:38Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Exactly when is a person not a human and a human not a person? Is it DNA based? Our parts have the same dna as all of us. Is a brain dead individual who we can pull the plug on still human but not a person? Is a corpse human but not a person? To give a terrible example, would a baby born with only autonomous functions but no higher brain functions be a human and not a person? No idea. That would be questions for you and your own to answer, since you keep going on about personhood and how it’s distinct from being a human and however else the line goes. > [@](#): > > In terms of rights these things are interchangeable. …??? > [@](#): > > As far as science goes, you can demonstrate that a fetus has a full set of dna, but not a fully developed set of organs. DNA is clearly not ethically significant, otherwise we’d be inviting dead people to dinner. It could be because dead people are dead, and no one likes a zombie. > [@iiandyiiii](#): > > That sounds like a slippery slope to me, or pretty close. And yet, it is not. You’re the one arguing a frankly losing position based on some rationale which has long since been discarded as being a valid justification (or much of a rationalization) for doing to another as you please. > [@](#): > > But anyway- for this- “as there is nothing which says that you have to be given the same basic rights as all other humans”- why not? I just explained this to you; twice! As per your logic, only _some_ humans are entitled to basic rights. If only _some_ humans are entitled to basic right, then who is to say that you are entitled to any basic rights? Sure, _other_ humans might get those rights, but who is to say that _you_ deserve them, too? In fact, what basis do you have under which to assert that you are deserving of basic rights? The answer to that is none. > [@](#): > > Why can’t the law say it? It _can_ but it doesn’t have to, and it can also say you don’t exist as far as being afforded basic protections are concerned. Again, I find it hard to fathom that you really believe the things you’re typing out, since that is how society ended up with institutions such as slavery or a situation in which one is rendered a “non-person” through complex legal codes. > [@](#): > > If we all just agreed that zygotes got no rights, who suffers? What kind of question is this? Those who are killed, obviously. (Oh, I’m sure you’re going to adopt some position in which suffering only matters if those who suffer have some kind of standing under the law.) > [@](#): > > I seriously don’t get what zygote rights have to do with human rights. …Yeah. See, did you not take biology is middle school? > [@](#): > > That’s not what I’m saying at all- I’m saying that the argument that “gay marriage will lead to plural marriage, or man on dog, or man on boy” is a BS slippery slope argument. You might want to reread what I wrote out again. The argument you put forth (“Who says all humans have to be treated equally?”) is counter to the main argument many persons (who also happen to, themselves, be pro-choice) put forth in regards to, say, something like gays and gay marriage (“Why shouldn’t they be afforded the same rights as any other human?”). It’s kind of a humorous thing to see. > [@](#): > > I’m not sure how you answered it- are you saying it would NOT be wrong of her to abort her pregnancy? If not, then why is it wrong for anyone else? 1.) You asked if she should be able to abort; I said “of course not”. 2.) My question to you was to highlight the fact that you would not say something should be allowed to be done solely _because_ no one else would know. Unfortunately, you ignored the question. > [@](#): > > No- the unborn have the right to control their body. **They just don’t have the ability**. The **bolded** makes no sense. How do the unborn not have the ability to control their own body? I’m rather curious as to how you came to such a dubious claim. > [@](#): > > They don’t have the right to take control of anyone else’s body or bodily function. No one has the right to control someone else’s body. If there’s an unwanted organism inside you, you can get rid of it. :smack::p:( That just about summed up my reaction. Neither controls the body of the other. > [@Untoward\_Parable](#): > > So before you continue to proliferate, you are saying that killing a human zygote, a one celled life, is just as wrong as killing a baby living outside the mother? Yes, sir/ma’am. …And let’s get something straight. This whole “single-celled” thing is a red herring. From end of fertilization, cell division takes place approximately every 22 hours or so. 99.9999999999999999999% of the time you’re not dealing with a one-celled life. Just to clear that up. > [@Bryan Ekers](#): > > For my part, I’d be curious how you’d justify such a claim. There’s always the old tried and true way of putting it into practice, but I don’t feel much like doing that. I’ll just stick with reading the threads that pop about gay and gay marriage. I always get a slight kick out of reading them. > [@martu](#): > > He is avoiding this question and he has skipped over my Blastocyst post and do you know why? Because it shows the nonsense of his position. Anti abortionists can make a compelling emotional argument (to some) when they are talking about something that at least looks like a baby but a clump of cells less than 0.1mm across? Not so much. > > So here is the question again - OMG do you think that a clump of cells 01.mm across should have more rights than a full grown woman? And no avoiding the question about more\same rights, if the clump of cells can use the woman’s body against her will it has more rights than her over her body. Oi, vey! Way back in post #407, I said to you: > [@Me](#): > > Or-- and bear with me here-- how about this? No one should have more rights than the other? Novel idea, yes? To which you promptly disappeared until now, where you’ve shown up with the same question. Therefore, I present you the above response, just as valid now as it was the first time you asked. > [@biddee](#): > > That was basically the same question I asked that he said that he had answered…he has never answered this. He keeps saying that it should have the same rights but avoids the issue of the fact that the cells HAVE to be hosted by a woman before they can become a baby. :smack::p:( 1.) I did answer it; you just didn’t like the response which, as I said to someone else, is no skin off of my nose. 2.) For argument’s sake, let’s just assume that “cells have to be hosted by a woman before they can become a baby”. It’s hard to assume an adversarial relationship between the mother and child that requires one to have less rights than the other (what if, for example, we treated both as having no rights?)-- especially when it’s not. ---
**Author:** ![biddee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@biddee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biddee)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/453 "2012-01-13T18:13:27Z")
> [@](#): > > 2.) For argument’s sake, let’s just assume that “cells have to be hosted by a woman before they can become a baby”. It’s hard to assume an adversarial relationship between the mother and child that requires one to have less rights than the other (what if, for example, we treated both as having no rights?)-- especially when it’s not. Huh? I don’t get this explanation. Are you trying to say that pregnancy has no effect on a woman’s body? The very first[link](http://www.thelizlibrary.org/liz/004.htm) if you google _“pregnancy effects on a woman’s body”_. And what do you mean for argument’s sake…of course the cells have to be hosted by a woman’s body. How else are they going to develop into a baby? Your answer that a clump of cells should have the same rights as a fully grown person really does ignore the fact that the woman who bears that clump of cells and carries it to term loses her right to autonomy of her own body. Plus you ignore the very real and permanent physical and emotional effects of pregnancy. ---
**Author:** ![biddee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@biddee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biddee)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/454 "2012-01-13T18:46:21Z")
To avoid a potential hijack of this thread, I have started another one [here](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?p=14664861#post14664861)specifically to ask **Omg** his stance on gay marriage since he did not answer my question in an earlier post. ---
**Author:** ![iiandyiiii](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/iiandyiiii/32/7924_2.png) [@iiandyiiii](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/iiandyiiii)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 6:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/455 "2012-01-13T18:47:58Z")
Omg- I think we’re playing word games to some extent. Basically- I agree on this statement: all humans are entitled to basic rights. When you say it, you include zygotes. I don’t. In a way, I’m saying all humans _that can survive outside the womb_ deserve basic rights, with the italicized portion unspoken (and understood as the common, colloquial use with respect to the word _human_ as opposed to the definition you use [which may be related to biology, but I’m certain that many doctors and biologists do not use the same definition of _human_ as you’re using- they call it “zygote”, “fetus”, “embryo”,or “developing human” for example]). I didn’t answer your callback to the astronaut question because it’s rhetorical and you know the answer- we’ve already established that I view zygotes as different than babies. And you didn’t answer one of my questions. Can you get rid of a tiny little dude that takes up residence inside you- even if evicting him will result in his death? If you can, why can’t a woman? Saying “zygote = human because biology/I say so” is not that convincing to me. Considering that so many biologists and doctors disagree with your take on abortion, why should I choose your view over theirs? Based on what I’ve read and studied, for a big chunk of fetal development, it has the same or less level of awareness, intelligence, and cognitive ability as a beetle. Not for all of development, but for a portion. At some point it crosses to goldfish level. Then baby-lizard territory, then newborn puppy level. Around that point or a bit before is when I think it may be morally problematic to abort the pregnancy. The previous paragraph pretty much sums up the “personhood” part of why I support abortion rights, for lack of a better word. The control over one’s own body issue is the other- summed up by the little-dude-up-your-butt hypothetical. If someone’s got something inside them, and they want it out, they can get it out. Look- I belive morality is created by humans and used by humans. It doesn’t exist outside of human experience (according to me). When I first learned about abortion- even the concept of it- I was about 12. I asked my parents and my older brother what they thought- and because this was before the internet- I checked out a book on development-inside-the-womb from my school library (my knowledge of development up to then was the picture-book “Where Did I Come From”). That’s pretty much when I started being pro-choice. I have tried to stay current on the science of development, broadly speaking, but I haven’t found any new information so far that has swayed my opinion on abortion much. You’re not telling me anything new- just that I should treat zygotes as human “just because”, essentially. If there was a crying baby on one table, and a bucket of 1500 frozen fertilized eggs on the other, and the building’s on fire, which one would you grab and run with(assume you could only get one)? I’m sure you’ve heard this one a million times before, and you’ll probably discount it or refuse to answer it or whatever- yeah, it’s not realistic. But I like my morality functionally coherent- I feel a _need_ to know what I would do in these circumstances. I’d grab the crying baby. In fact, I’d take a crying puppy over the egg-bucket- or even a hamster in a cage (or a goldfish bowl). The eggs are just cells to me- due the same moral consideration as the stuff in the kleenex I threw away. Considering all this, we know there’s one thing we can agree on- we should try and reduce the number of unwanted pregnancies. I don’t think abortion is a _good_ thing- it can be painful, there is a level of risk (however small- just like any medical procedure), and I’m sure it can be difficult psychologically. I believe the best way to reduce abortions is to improve education about and access to contraception. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/456 "2012-01-13T19:13:53Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > There’s always the old tried and true way of putting it into practice, but I don’t feel much like doing that. I’ll just stick with reading the threads that pop about gay and gay marriage. I always get a slight kick out of reading them. Well, let’s say you _did_ make a statement in a thread that genuinely angered everyone, including me. I’m not sure how that suggests your statement is correct (or incorrect), nor what it proves other than it is possible to anger people. The implication I see you trying to make is that your statement is TRUTH and we can’t handle TRUTH, or we’re dogmatically attached to our own version of TRUTH, or something. Anyway, let’s assume we give a fetus, at any stage of development, a full set of civil rights. Assume we also ensure the pregnant woman has a full set of civil rights. There’s a conflict. Who has priority? You want to give it to the fetus, myself and others want to give it to the woman. We have (or at least I have) various lines of reasoning to support this decision. Yours seem to rely on defining abortion as immoral, which I don’t find nearly as intellectually satisfying, but… whatever. ---
**Author:** ![Vihaga](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Vihaga](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Vihaga)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/457 "2012-01-13T19:21:08Z")
> [@Omg\_a\_Black\_Conservative](#): > > 2.) For argument’s sake, let’s just assume that “cells have to be hosted by a woman before they can become a baby”. It’s hard to assume an adversarial relationship between the mother and child that requires one to have less rights than the other (what if, for example, we treated both as having no rights?)-- especially when it’s not. Of all the ridiculous things you’ve said in this thread, this one takes the cake. Pregnancy is an adversarial relationship between the fetus and the woman pretty much the entire way through. It leeches the nutrients from her body (much of the function of prenatal vitamins other than folic acid is to minimize the impact on the mother’s long-term health), uses her blood and oxygen (the resulting circulatory changes are huge), and can play havoc with her blood pressure and health if the fetus doesn’t get what it needs (an increasingly popular theory of how eclampsia develops is signals upping the woman’s blood pressure when the fetus requires greater blood flow than it’s getting). The fetus’s nutritional and physiological needs are pitted against the mother’s pretty much every step of the way. So, even if the fetus were a person, are there a ton of other situations in which one private citizen is forced to provide their blood, oxygen, and even the calcium in their bones to another, even if the failure to provide that results in the other citizen’s death? Are we required to allow others the use of our organs if they need them to survive? If a person needs my blood and I’m legally obligated to give it to him even if my health is put at risk, then pretty much by definition his right to live has superseded my right to bodily autonomy. How is a fetus different? ---
**Author:** ![biddee](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/839c29/32.png) [@biddee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/biddee)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/458 "2012-01-13T19:24:19Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > Anyway, let’s assume we give a fetus, at any stage of development, a full set of civil rights. Assume we also ensure the pregnant woman has a full set of civil rights. There’s a conflict. Who has priority? You want to give it to the fetus, myself and others want to give it to the woman. We have (or at least I have) various lines of reasoning to support this decision. Yours seem to rely on defining abortion as immoral, which I don’t find nearly as intellectually satisfying, but… whatever. From what I can understand **Omg** ’s stance is that there is no conflict and that the fetus’s development does not infringe in any which way on the women’s rights. Because we all know pregnancy has no effect on women whatsoever :dubious::rolleyes:. I may be wrong, maybe I’ve misread everything he has written. ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/459 "2012-01-13T19:26:13Z")
Well, let’s say the President needs a kidney, and you’re the only match. You _can_ live with only one kidney, and the donor procedure is only a mere _inconvenience_… are you really going to let the President die for your own convenience? ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 7:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/460 "2012-01-13T19:36:54Z")
> [@biddee](#): > > From what I can understand **Omg** ’s stance is that there is no conflict and that the fetus’s development does not infringe in any which way on the women’s rights. Because we all know pregnancy has no effect on women whatsoever :dubious::rolleyes:. I may be wrong, maybe I’ve misread everything he has written. No, that’s his gist, as far as I can determine - the unique circumstances of pregnancy just don’t enter into his reasoning, as far as I can tell, and his position is that terminating a pregnancy is as bad as gunning down a kid in a playground. As a side note, I figure the difficulties of pregnancy are just the most _immediate_ reasons to keep an abortion option available. A lot of women just don’t want a child (or don’t want _another_ child), regardless of the difficulties of pregnancy, and forcing them to go through the entire process just to give the child up for adoption strikes me as pointless. She doesn’t want to be giving birth at a time when she would otherwise be studying for final exams? Good enough for me, though I don’t really demand she have _any_ particular reason other than “I want this pregnancy to not continue.” Forcing her to remain pregnant in order to teach her a lesson about “responsibility” strikes me as unnecessary and intrusive. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [January 13, 2012, 10:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998/461 "2012-01-13T22:01:48Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > . . . Forcing her to remain pregnant in order to teach her a lesson about “responsibility” strikes me as unnecessary and intrusive. The “intrusive” bit is pretty much what made up my mind on the issue. It’s a small-l libertarian viewpoint: do I really want a government that has the power to go around monitoring every woman’s pregnancy, from conception to birth, regulating her behavior, logging all complications, and investigating miscarriages as homicides? Okay, maybe that’s the result of slippery slope reasoning, and, in practice, the intrusion would stop well before that point. But the invasion of privacy seems unavoidable, especially if the law seriously concludes that abortion equals murder. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998.md?page=22) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/are-you-a-good-person-documentary-that-discusses-this-subject-and-abortion/606998.md?page=24)