Are you aware that Abby and Brittany Hensel, the two people pictured in your link who are conjoined twins, are on record as stating they prefer people NOT speculate on their sexual lives, real or imagined? It was even more creepy when they were young children, but still pretty creepy now that they’re adults.
But I guess your titillation is more important than how they feel about total strangers speculating about what should be a private matter for them. :rolleyes:
+1
It’s also within the realm of possibility that the twin who was raped is the one who wants the baby. I think it would be wrong to violate her body twice.
There are two problems with the fundamental question. The first is that it makes the same mistake that underlies the position of the anti-abortion Raging Prophets: it assumes that there is a universal simple and correct answer to very complex and difficult situations, a one-size-fits-all legal and moral resolution that must govern all cases. The second problem is that even if there was such a simple and morally universal answer – and there most decidedly is not – it’s probably a really bad idea to make law on the basis of an exceedingly rare and unlikely situation.
As it turns out, a pro-choice approach to abortion doesn’t require any such advance dictum or superhuman moral judgment. In a pro-choice world, with its premise of delegation of personal responsibility to the person, if the kind of situation described here were to arise, and there was disagreement between the twins about what to do, they would hopefully be able to resolve it between themselves with professional advice and counseling. If they could not, then they would presumably take it to court where it would be judged on its merits, in light of all the facts and circumstances and with all due compassion to the persons involved. And that has to be a better outcome that being forced to follow some predetermined law that never foresaw any of the special and particular circumstances.
I would assume that said conjoined twins would not have this issue because they already decided to get or not get pregnant as a team, and would greatly appreciate us not speculating strange fantasies on their sex lives for the sake of a not so great debate.
“Sis, these last nine months of therapy have been amazing. I feel like I finally understand you. Let’s get the abortion. Wait - was that a contraction?”
I’m inclined to agree with you, but I think posting Abby and Brittany Hensel’s picture was probably a mistake. (Although, since their names have come up, I’ll mention that I’ve continually been impressed with how well they handle their accidental celebrity - neither acting resentful of people’s natural curiosity nor allowing themselves to be steamrolled into answering every question people can throw at them. May they live long and prosper.) I think one could also ask how much weight should be given to the wishes of people who are not physically attached to the baby but do have a connection to it - notably the father.
I only feel that the cases of bodily autonomy are not illuminating because the adult-conjoined situations are rare to nonexistent. If they were very common then we could analogize between conjoined twins and abortion and wonder why the laws for them were not similar. If anything, the way society treats abortion is more illuminating to the case of conjoined twins than the other way around.
I thought this thread was going to be about aborting conjoined twins.
Really this hypothetical scenario is so rare that I don’t see why anyone would think a situation with two women in one pregnant body can be extrapolated to the vast majority of abortion seekers, who will be singletons.
It makes me think that someone who says this thinks that the pregnant conjoined twins scenario is almost the same situation as a singleton woman who wants an abortion when the father does not. :rolleyes:
Could be worse - the baby could be acid glue.
Find me a non-photoshopped image of a pair of sisters sharing a uterus but NOT the relevant fraction of an alimentary tract (such that Sister A’s bender is not also Sister B’s bender), and it may become a hypothetical worthy of discussion.
They don’t have to share an alimentary canal - Chang and Eng Bunker’s connection was pretty small, such that these days separating them might have been as simple as an outpatient procedure that didn’t even require full general anesthesia but Chang’s regular alcoholic benders got the teetotaler Eng equally drunk and at one point Chang’s drinking habit got Eng (really, both of them) tossed out of a Temperance meeting.
You can’t drug one conjoined twin without drugging them both.
Hmm… could you elaborate on that?