# Is it acceptable to pay a stranger to abort? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 6, 2015, 6:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783 "2015-11-06T06:12:52Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/aca169/32.png) [@Inbred\_Mm\_domesticus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Inbred_Mm_domesticus)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 9:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/41 "2015-11-06T21:05:52Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > If a woman is expecting a child and wants to abort, is it okay for the man who knocked her up to kidnap her, hold her until she gives birth, and then insist on keeping the baby? “She wanted to abort. She’s an unfit mother.” No because the man is kidnapping. He may have justifications but he is denying the rights of the mother for his own desires, which is immoral in general. ---
**Author:** ![Trinopus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/2bfe46/32.png) [@Trinopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Trinopus)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 9:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/42 "2015-11-06T21:10:55Z")
> [@Fretful\_Porpentine](#): > > . . . Paying someone else $10,000 to have an abortion _is_ an attempt to assert control over that person’s body. Yeah, it’s control-by-positive-incentive rather than control-by-force, but it’s still introducing an external influence into a decision that ought to be the woman’s own . . . I can see that this might be the case if the woman is extremely poor and needy. Poverty is what has driven many women to prostitution. I disagree with your principle that this is a kind of “control,” because if that were so, every Labor Day furniture sale is also exerting “control” over our decisions. It dilutes the word so far as to leave it meaningless. However, I could compromise on a “means test” for this and also for selling organs. Anyone who desperately needs the money is not in a position to make a completely uncoerced decision. On the other hand, this denies the option to those who would most benefit from it. The ethics are in conflict. (Playboy magazine used to have a means test for nude modeling. No one could say, “I had to pose nude for Playboy because I needed the money.” They took care that didn’t happen.) ---
**Author:** ![Fretful\_Porpentine](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fretful_porpentine/32/2873_2.png) [@Fretful\_Porpentine](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fretful_Porpentine)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 9:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/43 "2015-11-06T21:33:59Z")
Yeah, but 1) which furniture to buy is a decision that has nothing to do with bodily integrity; and 2) “I will pay you X to do Y” is a different, much more directive, proposition from “I will give you a discount if you buy an ottoman at my store rather than somebody else’s store.” A closer analogy to abortions-for-pay would be work-for-pay, and I guess we _do_ accept that employers are allowed to exercise a certain amount of control over their employees’ bodies – they can, for example, require employees to submit to random drug testing – but it’s usually very limited. ---
**Author:** ![octopus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/octopus/32/3716_2.png) [@octopus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/octopus)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 10:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/44 "2015-11-06T22:46:56Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Ninety-nine plus percent? Don’t you think that figure is a little high? The United States alone makes up 4.4% of the world population. I was referring to the idea that you have sovereignty over your body not legal right to abortion that supposedly is derived from sovereignty over one’s self. In most of the world the state prevents you from many things involving your own body through the threat of punishment. ---
**Author:** ![wonky](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wonky/32/393_2.png) [@wonky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wonky)\ **Post date:** [November 6, 2015, 11:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/45 "2015-11-06T23:33:27Z")
I want abortion to be rare because they are not 100% safe. Even more, I want unwanted pregnancies to be rare. An analogy would be if someone invented a drug that generally let people beat a heroin addiction but had some rare but occasionally serious side effects, then offered heroin addicts $10,000 to use the drug. There’s nothing morally iffy about ending a heroin addiction. Lots of drugs have rare but potentially serious side effects. But incentivizing someone to start a heroin addiction in order to be paid to end it just doesn’t sit right. In the same way, for me, incentivizing someone to start a pregnancy in order to be paid to end it just doesn’t sit right. That said, I don’t know that I’d want it made illegal. ---
**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:** [November 6, 2015, 11:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/46 "2015-11-06T23:48:07Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > As long as this guy has his wallet out, for 5k I’m willing to spill my seed upon the ground. Ah, own-a-new-home-theater-ism. ---
**Author:** ![kanicbird](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/5f8ce5/32.png) [@kanicbird](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/kanicbird)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 1:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/47 "2015-11-07T01:35:40Z")
> [@kayaker](#): > > As long as this guy has his wallet out, for 5k I’m willing to spill my seed upon the ground. Nimrod, I knew it was you. ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 2:39am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/48 "2015-11-07T02:39:03Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Ninety-nine plus percent? Don’t you think that figure is a little high? The United States alone makes up 4.4% of the world population. How many countries have legalized both prostitution and all drugs? Those are things that prevent people from doing whatever they want to their bodies too. ---
**Author:** ![Hector\_St\_Clare](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/b5ac83/32.png) [@Hector\_St\_Clare](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hector_St_Clare)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 4:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/49 "2015-11-07T04:34:59Z")
> [@elfkin477](#): > > How many countries have legalized both prostitution and all drugs? Those are things that prevent people from doing whatever they want to their bodies too. Colombia, Argentina, Peru, Chile and Venezuela have legalized/decriminalized both prostitution and marijuana, for one. Of course, abortion is also broadly illegal in those countries, which underscores that these three issues don’t really have a whole lot to do with each other. ---
**Author:** ![monstro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ba9def/32.png) [@monstro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/monstro)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 4:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/50 "2015-11-07T16:25:28Z")
It certainly seems like a great way to motivate women to have unwanted pregnancies. But alas, I can’t see the difference between incentivizing abortion and incentivizing sterility treatment–which I don’t have any qualms about. If you’re desperate enough to sell off your ability to reproduce, then chances are you wouldn’t be a great parent. Someone who can be coerced to have an abortion with money is not likely to be a great mother. To flip the script a bit, would you have moral problems with giving a pregnant woman $10,000 to _not_ abort her fetus? I wouldn’t. But I think I would have a problem if by accepting $10,000, she was required to raise the child. I don’t know why I’d be bothered by this, though. Society already provides financial incentives to people to have children. And lots of people raise children they don’t want but they do it because it’s financially lucrative for them (see all the negligent foster parents out there). Money _does_ encourage bad behavior, but seems to me the “badness” of abortion isn’t actually societal. A woman who has 20 abortions so she can buy that pink Cadillac she’s always wanted isn’t likely to hurt me with these “poor choices”, if that’s what they are. So that’s why I don’t have a problem with it, I guess. ---
**Author:** ![billfish678](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7bcc69/32.png) [@billfish678](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/billfish678)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2015, 4:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783/51 "2015-11-07T16:49:54Z")
I can hardly wait for the variation on this. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/is-it-acceptable-to-pay-a-stranger-to-abort/736783.md?page=2)