# How stupid do these anti-choicers think we are? **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [July 6, 2013, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813 "2013-07-06T21:36:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 6
**Author:** ![EverwonderWhy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EverwonderWhy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EverwonderWhy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/101 "2013-07-08T19:58:32Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Except that your view of the law is not the correct one. You alone don’t get to determine what the law is, any more than I alone do. We have institutions that authoritatively do that. > > And in general, ultrasound requirements are being upheld. Stenberg v. Carhart upheld prohibitions against partial-birth abortion. So how can you say you’re right, when the US Supreme Court says that there ARE circumstances in which we can require an abortion not be performed and that this does not violate “equality under the law?” I am unaware of any law that mandates the use of another person’s body against their will in order to provide life support for another person. There is no such law. The examples you cite are not mandating the biological use of another person’s biological processes in order to sustain the metabolism and respiration of another person. SCOTUS has upheld that abortions may be performed up until fetal viability for a reason – the point at which a fetus can survive without the use of another person’s body. The ultra sound laws (only one has been upheld, the others have been struck down and none of which have gone to SCOTUS) and _Cahart_ have not restricted women’s access to abortions up to viability (in theory, anyway). In fact, the reason why these laws were upheld was because _proponents specifically argued that neither law limits or restricts abortion up to fetal viability_. And if you really want to split hairs the _Cahart_ law is a limit on what type of procedure can be performed _specfically on the fetus_ – not the woman. She undergoes the same procedure prior to\* Cahart\*, just now the fetal heart is stopped prior to intact dilation and extraction. This is the same method used to remove stillborn fetuses. ---
**Author:** ![Snowboarder\_Bo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowboarder_bo/32/229_2.png) [@Snowboarder\_Bo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Snowboarder_Bo)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 7:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/102 "2013-07-08T19:59:59Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Is the law against murder derived from religious beliefs? As I noted in my post, no, it is not. Murder is seen in all societies, regardless of religion (or the absence of religion) as a bad thing. > [@Bricker](#): > > Only because you’re not reading what I’m saying. I don’t support the current law concerning abortion. I feel it’s immoral and wish the majority of people agreed with me. > > But I must recognize that, like it or not, that current law is the product of our democratic system. I can say I wish it were gone; I can’t say it’s not legitimate. > > This is in contrast to the commentators here: if they don’t like a law, they simply declare that since the law violates their personal sense of morality, they are correct, and the law is illegitimate. No, people aren’t saying the law is illegitimate; they are saying it is a bad law that was passed against the will of the people. If the legislature voted in favor of selling the country to France for a nickel, people would have the same reaction: the law may have been duly passed, but it’s not a good idea and it’s not what most people want the legislature to be doing. ---
**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:** [July 8, 2013, 8:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/103 "2013-07-08T20:11:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > I don’t agree that this would be the result. I think that back-alley quality abortions are a thing of the present: witness Gosnell and his parade of horrors. What Gosnell did was illegal, and is extremely out of the ordinary in modern abortion clinics. Do you think there would be more or fewer Gosnells if abortion was outlawed? I think there would be a lot more. How else would the obviously high demand for abortions be met? I find it hard to believe that you disagree with this statement: “outlawing abortion will result in a greater number of unprofessional and unsanitary abortions, and therefore a greater number of complications and deaths due to abortions”. ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/104 "2013-07-08T20:40:41Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > In my understanding, the vast majority of pregnancies lead to successful births with no complications for the mother. > > If I were to learn that the ratio were even one more mother’s death for ten unborn children saved, I’d reconsider the issue. You are quite mistaken. Try about 90% [http://blog.timesunion.com/healthcare/9-out-of-10-pregnancies-have-some-complication/2203/](http://blog.timesunion.com/healthcare/9-out-of-10-pregnancies-have-some-complication/2203/) Up to 20% of known pregnancies [end in miscarriage](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miscarriage#Epidemiology). [Gestational diabetes affects 5-10% of women.](http://www.emedicine.com/med/topic2349.htm#) [12-13% of birhts in the US are pre-term](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preterm_birth#cite_note-Goldenberg2008-1) [The WHO says](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Preeclampsia#Epidemiology) 6-8% of pregnant women will get pre-eclampsia. Oh hey, Wikipedia has a whole page for [Complications of Pregnancy](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Complications_of_pregnancy) that shows I’m missing a few like: Hemorrhoids Pica Deep vein thrombosis Ectopic Pregnancy The delivery itself has potential for scarring, bleeding, infection, and more. When our son was born my wife tore so much that it took 30 minutes to stitch her back together. She bled so much that they almost had to get a transfusion. I also notice that they don’t have postpartum depression on the list which some people estimate affects 1/4 of all women who were pregnant. (Women who miscarry or get abortions can get PPD). Heck, my wife’s hair changed color after our first kid. On a side note, Wikipedia has a page on [Maternal Death](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maternal_death) too. “Unsafe abortions” is the tied for 2nd leading cause at 13%. Some of those conditions go away, but each one of those conditions (or the effects) has the potential to stick around after pregnancy. Especially the maternal death one. ---
**Author:** ![EverwonderWhy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EverwonderWhy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EverwonderWhy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/105 "2013-07-08T21:02:12Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I wish you guys would stop making me support and defend Bricker, but while I’m strongly pro-choice and believe that he is wrong about the issue as a whole, he’s clearly on the logically correct side of many of the exchanges going on in this thread. That is, it certainly the case that a lot of people are making absolute statements like “a fetus is not a person”, or “No person has the right to lay claim or authority over another person’s biological processes” as if they were established scientific fact that Bricker was ignorantly or stubbornly ignoring, when in fact they are not. Abortion is a lot of things but one thing it is NOT is some black and white issue where it’s just utterly morally and ethically clear that abortion is completely 100% a medical procedure exactly like any other with no further implications. I make no claims that abortion is a black and white moral and ethical issue, but yes, _legally_ up to viability it is. I think the moral and ethical implications are personal and outside of the purview of government to enforce them. I specifically avoid the debate about (pre-viable) personhood because I believe that is a matter of personal philosophy (which I greatly respect), ergo, why abortion should only be argued along the ground of the rights of already born people. If the already born don’t have the rights that fetal personhood proponents seek to bestow on a fertilized egg then how can fetuses have these rights? For me, yes, unless you can legally justify the mandatory use of another person’s body and biological processes against their will _and mandate this of ALL people_, not just pregnant women – then you have no argument. So far, all I hear is how this should just only be mandated of pregnant women. NO, unacceptable. That speaks volumes about women’s equal status in society. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > **EverWonderWhy** : Suppose you and a stranger were both in a building and it collapsed, knocking you unconscious and SEVERELY injuing the stranger. Medics arrive on the scene, and see that the stranger desparately needs a transfusion of blood, and through some weird confluence of events realize that the stranger and you share a very unusual blood type. They’re getting more blood of that type flown in, but it won’t be here for an hour, so they hook up a little cross-transfusion-thing so that some blood from your veins is flowing into the stranger’s body keeping him alive. (I’m sure that such a thing does not actually exist, but this is a hypothetical.) A half hour later, you wake up, and see what is going on, and it is explained to you that in another half hour the blood supply will show up, and they can unhook you, but if you unhook yourself now, the stranger will certainly die. Do you have the moral right to demand to be unhooked? If there were a law to covert his very contrived situation, what should it be? If this law would apply to ALL people then perhaps I would consider it. If this was only mandated of one specific group of people, then absolutely not. Consider this: Would it be ethical to only mandate blood donation of type O negative people (who by virtue of biology are ‘universal donors’)? Their biology makes them ideally suited as donors, after all there is a shortage of blood and blood transfusion does not pose that great of imposition, right? The issue of pregnancy and child birth, however, goes far beyond blood transfusion. A woman’s body is irrevocably changed. Even a relatively healthy and complication free pregnancy still result with issues. Later life urinary incontinence or uterine prolapse, pregnant women produce anti-bodies in response sharing their circulatory system with the fetus. Women who have had children are more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus because of this. These antibodies make them particularly bad candidates as recipients of organ transplant. This is not even addressing the economic and social impact women face during pregnancy and childbirth. ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/106 "2013-07-08T21:26:11Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Says you. > > That’s all. You have listed a series of definitive statements. “No person has the right to implant themselves into the body of another person.” Where did you learn this fact? Why should I accept it as true? Because you said it so forbiddingly? > > I say that while I accept your statements as generally true, as regards two born individuals, I don’t agree they’re true in the context of a mother and her unborn child. > > Now – what makes you absolutely right and me wrong? …Dear god, could you be more thick or morally bankrupt? ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 9:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/107 "2013-07-08T21:31:39Z")
> [@EverwonderWhy](#): > > If this law would apply to ALL people then perhaps I would consider it. If this was only mandated of one specific group of people, then absolutely not. Consider this: Would it be ethical to only mandate blood donation of type O negative people (who by virtue of biology are ‘universal donors’)? Their biology makes them ideally suited as donors, after all there is a shortage of blood and blood transfusion does not pose that great of imposition, right? I think it’s a gray area… Fundamentally, women can get pregnant and men can’t. Therefore unless there are absolutely zero laws that ever even mention pregnancy at all, there are going to be laws that “discriminate” in some sense of the word. For instance, I think there are plenty of laws concerning maternity leave, access to more comfortable seats on buses, supplemental insurance for prenatal care, and other such things that only ever possibly apply to women. I don’t think “that law only applies to pregnant people, and pregnant people are only ever women, therefore it is discriminatory, therefore we should not allow it” is a particularly meaningful argument in and of itself. > [@](#): > > The issue of pregnancy and child birth, however, goes far beyond blood transfusion. A woman’s body is irrevocably changed. Even a relatively healthy and complication free pregnancy still result with issues. Later life urinary incontinence or uterine prolapse, pregnant women produce anti-bodies in response sharing their circulatory system with the fetus. Women who have had children are more likely to suffer from autoimmune diseases like rheumatoid arthritis and lupus because of this. These antibodies make them particularly bad candidates as recipients of organ transplant. This is not even addressing the economic and social impact women face during pregnancy and childbirth. Right. So for me the reason that abortion should be legal is because if you weigh the various costs and impacts of allowing a woman to abort vs. the various costs and impacts of forcing her to carry the bay to term, the first greatly outweigh the latter. But because it’s a weighing of costs, I can see how reasonable people can count various factors differently than I do, and therefore disagree. Your post which I first referred to seemed to be saying “it’s my right to control my body vs X, where X is ANYTHING ELSE and the impact on my body is ANYTHING, and in any such situation my rights always come out on top, period”. The entire point of having a society with laws is that some laws do curtail individual freedoms for the common good. That’s what taxes and patent law and driver’s license requirements all do. I don’t see why that basic type of formulation couldn’t theoretically apply even when the individual freedom being surrendered is one that involves one’s physical body. Again, not that I SUPPORT any such laws, necessarily, but I don’t think they’re just automatically off the table because “sticking a needle into my arm” is somehow different from any other kind of imposition that we all accept from laws every day. ---
**Author:** ![EverwonderWhy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EverwonderWhy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EverwonderWhy)\ **Post date:** [July 8, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/108 "2013-07-08T22:20:30Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > I think it’s a gray area… Fundamentally, women can get pregnant and men can’t. Therefore unless there are absolutely zero laws that ever even mention pregnancy at all, there are going to be laws that “discriminate” in some sense of the word. For instance, I think there are plenty of laws concerning maternity leave, access to more comfortable seats on buses, supplemental insurance for prenatal care, and other such things that only ever possibly apply to women. I don’t think “that law only applies to pregnant people, and pregnant people are only ever women, therefore it is discriminatory, therefore we should not allow it” is a particularly meaningful argument in and of itself. I think you are confused about what body autonomy and body integrity actually mean. Hint: it is not about discrimination. Maternity leave, is actually generally regarded as _parental leave_ and should be afforded to either parent regardless of gender (either way maternity leave isn’t even legally mandated in the US anyway?) Disabled seating is afforded to anyone who is disabled, not just pregnant women. Yes, women can’t get prostate exams, men can’t get pap smears, etc. This line of argument is a total non sequitur, does not logically follow. Ultimately, neither of these laws _force a person to share their body in biological support of another person_. If you don’t find this a meaningful argument then we will have to agree to disagree. Because this is the crux of the issue in mandatory pregnancy and childbirth - _body autonomy_. Please show me any real-world example where a person’s ‘right to life’ entitles them access to another person’s body in order to survive. So far, all you got is a hypothetical that doesn’t exist in the real world. We don’t mandate organ donation. We don’t even mandate organ donation of biological parents in order to save the life of their (born) offspring. You can not mandate the use of a pregnant woman’s body against her will when we don’t even mandate that of a corpse. You may get to your pro-choice position a totally different way that I do. More power to you. I don’t find your method particularly compelling, logical or meaningful either so I guess we are even. ETA: And you found Bricker the voice of logical argument in this thread? > [@Bricker](#): > > Says you. > > That’s all. You have listed a series of definitive statements. “No person has the right to implant themselves into the body of another person.” Where did you learn this fact? Why should I accept it as true? Because you said it so forbiddingly? > > **I say that while I accept your statements as generally true, as regards two born individuals, I don’t agree they’re true in the context of a mother and her unborn child.** > > Now – what makes you absolutely right and me wrong? Wow. Two born individuals have these rights, but a pregnant woman does not. ---
**Author:** ![MaxTheVool](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MaxTheVool](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MaxTheVool)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 12:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/109 "2013-07-09T00:20:29Z")
> [@EverwonderWhy](#): > > Please show me any real-world example where a person’s ‘right to life’ entitles them access to another person’s body in order to survive. So far, all you got is a hypothetical that doesn’t exist in the real world. Right, because pregnancy is such a unique situation. I mean, what would happen if there were a set of conjoined twins, and one of them had kidney failure, but she was able to survive because she got her blood cycled through the other twin’s kidney, and then the other twin decided that she didn’t want the first twin to get to use her kidney. What would happen? Beats me. There are a lot of aspects of pregnancy that are comparable to various things, but really nothing that is analogous to pregnancy as a whole, so while it’s perhaps interesting to make arguments like “well, we can’t force people to donate organs, therefore…” it’s rarely if ever going to be decisive, because donating organs, or what have you, is never a perfect analogy. The point I specifically want to make is that it sounds like you basically think that a person’s right to control their own body is utterly paramount. The problem with that is that that argument would make super-super-late-term abortion just as legal as, and ethically equivalent to, first-trimester abortion, which is a position that very few people support. In other words, the reason that first trimester abortion should be legal is not that a women’s right to control her own body is utterly 100% paramount, but that it’s very very strong, and that the imposition of caring a baby for 6 months is huge, and that the “rights” of a tiny embryo are small or nonexistant; while a (hypothetical, as I realize this almost never happens) very-very-late-third-trimester abortion is on some level weighing the same issues against each other (after all it’s still the rights of a woman vs. the “rights” of something insider her body) but enough of the factors have changed that most people will rebalance the equation enough to come to an opposite conclusion. The other point I want to make is in response (not necessarily specifically to you) to the idea that because only women can get pregnant and have abortions, their opinions about the issue should be the only ones that matter, or perhaps should matter more strongly. This is another gray area issue where I find it hard to really stake out a position I’m comfortable with. On the one hand, I find it quite distasteful to see a panel discussion on Fox News of (presumably old and white) men talking about the issue. On the other hand, there’s really no mechanism in our democracy to determine that an issue only affects a certain subset of the population and thus only those people should get to vote about it. Should requirements for wheelchair accessibility be voted only by people in wheelchairs? Should post-menopausal women be just as excluded as men from decisions about abortion? Finally, part of your argument seems to be that outlawing abortion, because it only applies to women, is in some way discriminatory or sexist. And, yet again, this is an issue where I think it’s a bit gray. But (and again, we have to go to crazy analogy land) if you imagine a species of hermaphrodites in which any individual could get pregnant, but pregnancy was otherwise similar in duration and effect to pregnancy among humans; we can certainly imagine people in that society having precisely the same debate we’re having now in which the rights of the parent were weighed against the rights of the embryo. Should the fact that in that society any person could become pregnant whereas in our society only half the people can become pregnant have any influence on whether aborting a 2-month embryo is or is not murder? > [@](#): > > And you found Bricker the voice of logical argument in this thread? As I said, I think some of the individual responses to him were facile and overreaching. In fact, I think abortion is enough of a complicated ethical quagmire that pretty much anyone who states their argument as if it’s the clearly and unambiguously only correct one is probably overreaching. ---
**Author:** ![LavenderBlue](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/e95f7d/32.png) [@LavenderBlue](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/LavenderBlue)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 12:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/110 "2013-07-09T00:31:54Z")
Abortion is complicated morally for many women including myself who are pro-choice. But if we are discussing the legal issue then it is legally fairly simple and even **Bricker** admits it. Most of the American population supports legal abortion for the first three months and then after to save a woman’s life. The alternative is unsafe abortions and maimed and dead women. Most Americans do not want to see that happen. ---
**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:** [July 9, 2013, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/111 "2013-07-09T00:51:01Z")
I don’t know why it has to be complicated (legally, at least). It’s not like catastrophe would follow if all abortion laws vanished, and thus to avoid catastrophe yet not deny individual rights requires crafting a delicate path through a legal minefield. ---
**Author:** ![Cyros](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a698b9/32.png) [@Cyros](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cyros)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 1:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/112 "2013-07-09T01:02:45Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > I don’t know why it has to be complicated (legally, at least). It’s not like catastrophe would follow if all abortion laws vanished, and thus to avoid catastrophe yet not deny individual rights requires crafting a delicate path through a legal minefield. Well, there is the danger that they will develop an appetite for maple and beaver tails. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/113 "2013-07-09T01:22:43Z")
Danger? What, some threat if we annex Canada? ---
**Author:** ![YogSothoth](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/8edcca/32.png) [@YogSothoth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/YogSothoth)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 1:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/114 "2013-07-09T01:25:21Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Says you. > > That’s all. You have listed a series of definitive statements. “No person has the right to implant themselves into the body of another person.” Where did you learn this fact? Why should I accept it as true? Because you said it so forbiddingly? > > I say that while I accept your statements as generally true, as regards two born individuals, I don’t agree they’re true in the context of a mother and her unborn child. > > Now – what makes you absolutely right and me wrong? Since you like to play this game so much, let’s play. I think abortions are just swell. So the fetus “dies”, so what? Who the fuck cares? Why should they care? You pro-lifers go around making all these black and white assertions like abortion is murder, or it destroys life, but where the hell did you get that from? Some moldy old book? Your feelings? Why should anyone give a shit about that? Let’s say abortion destroys life. So what? If they’re a fetus, fuck them. Let’s say abortion is murder. So what? If they’re a fetus, murder them. Let’s say abortion violates the rights of the fetus. So what? What are they going to do about it? A whole crap load of NOTHING! A fetus will NEVER be able to take revenge or punish actual birthed people, so who gives a shit? Maybe they suffer? Oh well, big deal. I stubbed my toe last week, it really hurt, did anyone help me? So what if the fetus feels pain? It’ll be over quick, so fuck them. Why should anyone agree with you that in the context of a mother and unborn child, its different? What makes you absolutely right and me wrong? ---
**Author:** ![EverwonderWhy](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/ee59a6/32.png) [@EverwonderWhy](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EverwonderWhy)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 2:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/115 "2013-07-09T02:18:28Z")
> [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Right, because pregnancy is such a unique situation. I mean, what would happen if there were a set of conjoined twins, and one of them had kidney failure, but she was able to survive because she got her blood cycled through the other twin’s kidney, and then the other twin decided that she didn’t want the first twin to get to use her kidney. What would happen? Beats me. There are a lot of aspects of pregnancy that are comparable to various things, but really nothing that is analogous to pregnancy as a whole, so while it’s perhaps interesting to make arguments like “well, we can’t force people to donate organs, therefore…” it’s rarely if ever going to be decisive, because donating organs, or what have you, is never a perfect analogy. In pregnancy it is quite easy to define where the woman’s body ends and where the fetuses begins. Her body was her own prior to the existence of the fetus, it is clear whose circulatory system, urinary system, etc, is being infringed on. With conjoined twins, they both may lay claim to body parts that came into existence at the same time. It is not always clear where one twin’s body ends the other twin’s begins. Yes, pregnancy is a very unique situation. However, any other ‘right to life’ justification for infringing on someone’s body autonomy, e.g. mandatory blood/tissue/organ donation, where every single day already born people die without the use of other peoples’ bodies – which doesn’t even come near to the same degree of infringement on body autonomy that pregnancy imposes on a woman – not legally mandated. Not even legally mandated of corpses. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > The point I specifically want to make is that it sounds like you basically think that a person’s right to control their own body is utterly paramount. The problem with that is that that argument would make super-super-late-term abortion just as legal as, and ethically equivalent to, first-trimester abortion, which is a position that very few people support. The line between super-late-term and early-term abortion is pretty clear: Fetal viability. When the fetus is no longer dependent on the body of another in order to sustain it’s life. Yes, body autonomy is pretty paramount. I can only think of few other cases where violation is legally permissible. (And no, the limiting personal freedom by state enforcement of taxes, mandatory child support, driver license’s requirements or vehicle registration, etc, are so NOT even the same thing. No one’s body integrity or body autonomy is being violating even if personal freedom is being limited). The only instances off the top of my head that come close to (currently legal) violations of body autonomy is compulsory medicating of patients suffering from extreme mental illness (we are talking about people who have been declared mentally incompetent/insane and are a danger to themselves and/or other people), the force feeding of prisoners (ethical gray area, IMO), lethal injection of prisoners convicted of capital crimes (totally unethical, IMO), enforcing hygiene standards on prisoners, body cavity searches of prisoners, or court ordered DNA sampling, even mandatory blood alcohol testing or toxicity screening of those accused of crimes is pretty ethically fraught – and that is just obtaining a biological sample, not using someone’s body as biological life support against their will. Yes, the right to body autonomy is a pretty paramount issue in the grand scheme of human rights, violation is akin to forcing medical procedures on someone or non-consensual medical experimentation or slavery. Pretty heinous stuff. Not easily justified at all. > [@MaxTheVool](#): > > Finally, part of your argument seems to be that outlawing abortion, because it only applies to women, is in some way discriminatory or sexist. Actually no, I have not made that argument at all, though you seem to be determined to assume it. If no born person’s right to life entitles them access to another person’s body in order to survive, how do fetuses have this right? If only _pregnant women’s_ bodies may be used against their will (as **Bricker** stated), that is not equality under the law. Yes, for me it is clear, either mandate blood/tissue/organ donation of ALL people, including corpses, or you can not mandate continued pregnancy and childbirth of pregnant women without reducing them to involuntary biological incubators. I am not opposed to men weighing in (nor have I ever stated that men have no say), but the say of the people whose body autonomy, health and well-being is most intimately affected and at risk should certainly carry more weight. And when it comes to legislating abortion, women, medical experts and evidence of sound clinical practice should absolutely carry more weight than uninformed ideologues. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 2:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/116 "2013-07-09T02:43:23Z")
> [@Bryan\_Ekers](#): > > It’s not like catastrophe would follow if all abortion laws vanished . . . No, it isn’t, is it? ---
**Author:** ![Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/budget_player_cadet/32/205_2.png) [@Budget\_Player\_Cadet](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Budget_Player_Cadet)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 10:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/117 "2013-07-09T10:40:40Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Says you. > > That’s all. You have listed a series of definitive statements. “No person has the right to implant themselves into the body of another person.” Where did you learn this fact? Why should I accept it as true? Because you said it so forbiddingly? > > I say that while I accept your statements as generally true, as regards two born individuals, I don’t agree they’re true in the context of a mother and her unborn child. > > Now – what makes you absolutely right and me wrong? Okay, sorry if I seem a little slow on this topic, this is the second time I’ve asked something along this vein, but… …Did bricker just seriously assert that the right of bodily autonomy is non-existent or that it somehow doesn’t apply in the case of a pregnant woman for no adequate reason? Does he have any idea how stupid that sounds? ---
**Author:** ![Acsenray](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/acsenray/32/4519_2.png) [@Acsenray](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Acsenray)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 11:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/118 "2013-07-09T11:27:08Z")
> [@Bricker](#): > > Of course, if you were a resident of Wisconsin, a necessary prior step would be getting an ultrasound, which is ALSO a facet of the law. And one I’m pleased to see. For this to be a legitimate law, the pleasure felt by the legislature and executive in passing it must be triggered by a legitimate purpose and it must have a legitimate result. So what is the pleasure and the result? Is it to impose their religious beliefs on the public? Is it to frustrate those who seek to exercise their fundamental rights under Roe? I’m pretty sure “just to fuck with people so that it’s unpleasant and difficult to exercise their rights” is not a legitimate governmental pleasure. So what is the pleasure, Bricker? ---
**Author:** ![Gedd](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gedd/32/4938_2.png) [@Gedd](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gedd)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 12:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/119 "2013-07-09T12:48:18Z")
[Hey, a minor victory!](http://www.cnn.com/2013/07/09/politics/wisconsin-abortion-law/index.html?hpt=hp_t2) Planned Parenthood filed suit over the part that bans doctors from performing abortions if they don’t have admitting privileges to hospitals within 30 minutes of their practice. A judge temporarily blocked the law pending a hearing on July 17. ---
**Author:** ![Bricker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/977dab/32.png) [@Bricker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bricker)\ **Post date:** [July 9, 2013, 2:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813/120 "2013-07-09T14:26:52Z")
> [@Acsenray](#): > > For this to be a legitimate law, the pleasure felt by the legislature and executive in passing it must be triggered by a legitimate purpose and it must have a legitimate result. > > So what is the pleasure and the result? Is it to impose their religious beliefs on the public? Is it to frustrate those who seek to exercise their fundamental rights under Roe? > > I’m pretty sure “just to fuck with people so that it’s unpleasant and difficult to exercise their rights” is not a legitimate governmental pleasure. > > So what is the pleasure, Bricker? I’ve never heard that “pleasure felt by the legislature” is any kind of a standard that must be justified by any type of a threshold. Perhaps you have a cite for this odd claim? It’s true that a law must be rationally related to a legitimate state interest. In this case, the legitimate state interest is what the Supreme Court affirmed in _Casey v. Planned Parenthood_: > [@](#): > > …the principle that the State has legitimate interests from the outset of the pregnancy in protecting the health of the woman and the life of the fetus that may become a child. So the ultrasound requirement is rationally related to protecting the life of the fetus that may become a child. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813.md?page=5) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/how-stupid-do-these-anti-choicers-think-we-are/662813.md?page=7)