# Pro-Lifers cannot think a fetus is a "person" **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [June 1, 2009, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391 "2009-06-01T18:50:24Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 10
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/181 "2009-06-02T22:25:32Z")
> [@Early\_Out](#): > > Your only answer, as far as I can tell, is that you don’t believe there should be any exception for rape. I was asking if that meant that you really weren’t concerned about the consequences of that position for the rape victim. It would appear that your answer is that you’re not concerned about the victim - you’ve said nothing else about it. I find that stance callous and downright cruel. What have you inferred about my stance on puppy kicking, while you’re at it? ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/182 "2009-06-02T22:31:21Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Here’s a question for the Lifers, What if abortion was no longer legal? Picture this – you’re walking down the hallway of a hospital after having had minor hemorrhoid surgery. You, of course, are strapped, since you live in a state which allows open carry in hospitals. You are ambling along, whistling happily, and twirling your Jericho 941 “Baby Eagle” on one finger. You happen to look in a door and see a doctor about to perform what you know from your med school training is an illegal Intact Dilation and Extraction (aka “partial-birth abortion”) on a woman who your expert eye tells you is approximately 22 weeks pregnant. You can tell that the illegal abortionist has already partially drawn the fetus feet first into the birth canal, and is just about to perform the procedure to evacuate the brain case so the skull can be more easily passed through the cervix. You do not have time to call security or law enforcement. The fetus will die within seconds. > > You scream for the abortionist to stop. He ignores you. He is just starting to go in with a scalpel to make the necessary incision in the skull of the fetus. You consider running to tackle him, but you would not have time to get to him before he killed the fetus. The only way you can stop him from killing the fetus is by shooting him with your Israeli semi-automatic assault pistol. Is it ethical to kill the doctor to stop the abortion? > > Remeber, in this scenario the doctor is performing an _illegal_ operation. What he’s doing is defined statutorally as no different than killing a toddler. Do you shot him or not? If not, why not? I think I would. In this instance, it’s reasonable to think the act might actually prevent a specific abortion while not making it that much more likely that an abortion ban would not occur (since it’s already in place). It would not be a pointless act. ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/183 "2009-06-02T22:32:47Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > What have you inferred about my stance on puppy kicking, while you’re at it? Nothing, since rapes don’t produce puppies. They do sometime produce unwanted pregnancies, however, an outcome that you seem to be absolutely determined to ignore. I really don’t get what you’re driving at. Rape victims sometimes end up pregnant. You have said that you are opposed to allowing rape victims to abort the unwanted pregnancy. This means that you are in favor of forcing some rape victims to carry the unwanted fetus to term, and to give birth. Which part of this is not true? If I have inferred something incorrectly, please clarify your position. Making references to things that haven’t even been implied doesn’t seem to very helpful. ---
**Author:** ![Stratocaster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/stratocaster/32/16393_2.png) [@Stratocaster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Stratocaster)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/184 "2009-06-02T22:41:13Z")
> [@Early\_Out](#): > > Nothing, since rapes don’t produce puppies. They do sometime produce unwanted pregnancies, however, an outcome that you seem to be absolutely determined to ignore. > > I really don’t get what you’re driving at. Rape victims sometimes end up pregnant. You have said that you are opposed to allowing rape victims to abort the unwanted pregnancy. This means that you are in favor of forcing some rape victims to carry the unwanted fetus to term, and to give birth. > > Which part of this is not true? If I have inferred something incorrectly, please clarify your position. Making references to things that haven’t even been implied doesn’t seem to very helpful. What you have inferred is my disregard for the pain this creates, my callousness, etc. My unwillingness to permit someone to kill her toddlers, as an analogy, does NOT imply I have no sympathy for her financial plight, or the real anxiety and desperation she may feel. You have, multiple times, concluded something that has no basis in anything other than your apparent belief that one can only have some sort of contempt or disregard for rape victims if one does not allow for this exception. I base this inference on the fact that you’ve assigned such a position to me without anything at all to base it on. “Since you haven’t expressed your concern over the rape victim, you must have none, given your willingness to force her to carry this child to term.” See? ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/185 "2009-06-02T22:43:51Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > What you have inferred is my disregard for the pain this creates, my callousness, etc. OK, fair enough. Then can we say that you believe that protecting the life of the unborn fetus is more important than addressing the pain of the rape victim? ---
**Author:** ![Sinaijon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/dc4da7/32.png) [@Sinaijon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sinaijon)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/186 "2009-06-02T22:49:25Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > Therefore, he must also believe that any action he takes to stop this atrocity is morally justifiable _non sequitur_ This has been pointed out over and over and over and over. Why is vigilantism required to believe something is murder? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 10:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/187 "2009-06-02T22:52:40Z")
> [@Weston](#): > > In a sense, yes. You can make a case that every penny not spent on your immediate survival is a penny spent prolonging the misery of someone else. Through inaction, we are all guilty of falling short of our deepest moral convictions. However, there is a vast difference, morally speaking, between allowing someone to die through inaction and actively going out of your way to hurt someone. Pro-lifers believe fetuses have an inalienable right to life and it is therefore inconsistent for pro-lifers who genuinely believe abortion is murder to tolerate the presence of abortionists in their midst, given their views on the practise. At the same time, it’s not inconsistent to tolerate the practise of keeping the bulk of one’s own wages for oneself because nobody has the right to the fruits of another’s labour. So nobody has the right to the fruits of another’s labor, even if without those fruits they will die. So does a fetus have the right to the fruits of the pro-life activist’s labor, even if without those fruits the fetus will die? If I people are being killed, what are my obligations to help them? Every week murders are committed in my city. What obligation do I have to prevent them? Every day people die in car crashes. What obligation do I have to prevent them? Let’s say that if one adult man stabs another adult man and kills him, in an argument over a vial of crack cocaine. That’s murder. What obligation do I have to prevent that murder? The flaw in the argument that if you’re pro-life you should kill abortion doctors is that killing abortion doctors won’t do much to prevent abortions. To touch on the concentration camp example, suppose you were a resistance fighter and there was a concentration camp nearby. If you could kill the guards and save the lives of the prisoners that would be a good thing. But suppose there are hundreds of guards and only one of you. And maybe you could kill one guard, but that would leave 99, and they’d just conscript another guard tomorrow. Therefore, killing one guard won’t save any prisoners, killing 20 guards won’t save any prisoners. Preventing one abortion doctor from working (by killing him or other means) doesn’t stop the supply side. Abortion doctors don’t round up fetuses to kill, pregnant women go to abortion providers on their own. And even if there were no legal abortion providers there would still be many abortions, abortion was common back when it was still illegal. So now what? If the object is to stop abortions then making it against the law to provide abortions doesn’t do much. You have to convince individual pregnant women not to seek an abortion, whether that abortion is legal or illegal. And help women who don’t want to be pregnant from becoming pregnant in the first place. Otherwise you haven’t solved anything, even if you think abortion is murder. ---
**Author:** ![elucidator](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/8edcca/32.png) [@elucidator](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elucidator)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/188 "2009-06-02T23:06:14Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > What have you inferred about my stance on puppy kicking, while you’re at it? Drop kick, of course! Seriously, is there any question? ---
**Author:** ![PhiloVance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/e19adc/32.png) [@PhiloVance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PhiloVance)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/189 "2009-06-02T23:07:16Z")
> [@Annie-Xmas](#): > > Pro-lifers who believe that life begins at conception should also be working to make sure every fertilized egg comes to term, even if they have to force women to get pregnant with them. And every miscarriage is examined to make sure the woman didn’t cause it by taking an asprin, have a glass of wine, or “thinking bad thoughts.” Hell, every period of every women who is sexually active would have to be examined to make sure there isn’t a fertilized egg that she “caused” to be expelled. Annie, I do believe you subscribe to the Der Trihs newsletter. :rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![elfkin477](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/a9a28c/32.png) [@elfkin477](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/elfkin477)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/190 "2009-06-02T23:09:35Z")
> [@Diogenes\_the\_Cynic](#): > > Here’s a question for the Lifers, What if abortion was no longer legal? Picture this – you’re walking down the hallway of a hospital after having had minor hemorrhoid surgery. You, of course, are strapped, since you live in a state which allows open carry in hospitals. You are ambling along, whistling happily, and twirling your Jericho 941 “Baby Eagle” on one finger. You happen to look in a door and see a doctor about to perform what you know from your med school training is an illegal Intact Dilation and Extraction (aka “partial-birth abortion”) on a woman who your expert eye tells you is approximately 22 weeks pregnant. You can tell that the illegal abortionist has already partially drawn the fetus feet first into the birth canal, and is just about to perform the procedure to evacuate the brain case so the skull can be more easily passed through the cervix. You do not have time to call security or law enforcement. The fetus will die within seconds. > > You scream for the abortionist to stop. He ignores you. He is just starting to go in with a scalpel to make the necessary incision in the skull of the fetus. You consider running to tackle him, but you would not have time to get to him before he killed the fetus. The only way you can stop him from killing the fetus is by shooting him with your Israeli semi-automatic assault pistol. Is it ethical to kill the doctor to stop the abortion? > > Remeber, in this scenario the doctor is performing an _illegal_ operation. What he’s doing is defined statutorally as no different than killing a toddler. Do you shot him or not? If not, why not? Clearly your knowledge of biology is lacking if you think there’s anything that can be done to save the baby at that point. Once he broke the amnion, which he had to do before he could pull it out into the birth canal, the kid is doomed. He’s killed it already, even if it hasn’t stopped moving yet. What would you have me do for a baby that’s sure to perish for being born weeks before viability? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/191 "2009-06-02T23:11:58Z")
> [@Sinaijon](#): > > Why is vigilantism required to believe something is murder? Hmm, I think this is the ultimate point. A person who sits on their hands and expresses apathy towards abortions cannot believe they are murder. But a person who believes strongly in the rule of law, in pacifism, in changing the world through debate, or in prioritizing their own life and their family’s support over vigilanteism can quite reasonably elect another method of protest or even conflicted inaction over the option of grabbing the shotgun and goin’ a-hunting. Also, it seems a bit much to demand that people react to people mass-murdering babies by going out and mass-murdering doctors out of their moral outrage at the notion of mass-murdering. ---
**Author:** ![Flyhalf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ea5d25/32.png) [@Flyhalf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyhalf)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/192 "2009-06-02T23:22:17Z")
> [@Stratocaster](#): > > What you have inferred is my disregard for the pain this creates, my callousness, etc. My unwillingness to permit someone to kill her toddlers, as an analogy, does NOT imply I have no sympathy for her financial plight, or the real anxiety and desperation she may feel. You have, multiple times, concluded something that has no basis in anything other than your apparent belief that one can only have some sort of contempt or disregard for rape victims if one does not allow for this exception. I base this inference on the fact that you’ve assigned such a position to me without anything at all to base it on. “Since you haven’t expressed your concern over the rape victim, you must have none, given your willingness to force her to carry this child to term.” See? So you care just a little bit then, but not enough to allow the woman to abort a pregnancy caused by rape? Is that it? And who said anything about toddlers? ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2009, 11:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/193 "2009-06-02T23:58:07Z")
In Iran, they execute men who have sex with other men. Isn’t that just murder? So why aren’t you guys buying tickets to Iran and gunning down Iranian Shari’a judges? If you don’t kill Iranian Shari’a judges, then you don’t _really_ believe homosexuals are people. Or, perhaps, you do think Iranian homosexuals are people, and executing men for having sex with other men is murder, but it’s not your job to stop every murder in the world. You’ve got bills to pay. And so you shake your head and post RO threads in the Pit about it, and then go home and watch another episode of Lost. Besides, while self-defense or the defense of others is a defense against a charge of murder, under our legal system you aren’t _obligated_ to kill to prevent the loss of life. If you’ve got a gun, and you see guy shooting up a school, you aren’t obligated to try to kill the school shooter. You’re allowed to run and hide and protect yourself. You aren’t obligated to put your life ahead of anyone else’s life. You aren’t obligated to risk your life to save another person, even if that person is an unborn baby. ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 12:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/194 "2009-06-03T00:04:28Z")
> [@Flyhalf](#): > > So you care just a little bit then, but not enough to allow the woman to abort a pregnancy caused by rape? Is that it? And who said anything about toddlers? Maybe he has compassion for rape victims, but doesn’t think being raped gives you the right to kill another human being. If you were raped, and the rapist was sentenced to 20 years in prison, would the rape victim be morally justified in shooting the rapist as he was transported to prison? If she shot him, she’d be committing a crime–maybe she could plead it down to involuntary manslaughter, or plead diminished capacity or some such. But she’d face some sort of judgement for killing him, even though he was a rapist. So if she wouldn’t be justified in killing the rapist, how could she be justified in killing the rapist’s baby? Assuming, arguendo, that the developing embryo is a human being. ---
**Author:** ![Flyhalf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/ea5d25/32.png) [@Flyhalf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Flyhalf)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 12:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/195 "2009-06-03T00:32:58Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > So if she wouldn’t be justified in killing the rapist, how could she be justified in killing the rapist’s baby? Assuming, arguendo, that the developing embryo is a human being. So it’s too bad that she was raped and all, but now she has to carry around the reminder? ---
**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:** [June 3, 2009, 12:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/196 "2009-06-03T00:38:02Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > You aren’t obligated to risk your life to save another person, even if that person is an unborn baby. I would hope both sides could agree on that. ---
**Author:** ![rolandgunslinger](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/cdc98d/32.png) [@rolandgunslinger](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/rolandgunslinger)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 12:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/197 "2009-06-03T00:51:49Z")
I don’t know where I stand on the abortion issue honestly. Sure, I’d like there to be less abortions performed. But what business is it of mine what a woman does with her own body? The only question I have is this…If a pregnant woman is murdered, why is the murderer charged with two murders as opposed to just the murder of the woman? The fetus isn’t a human yet? [Cite](http://www.kctv5.com/news/18300001/detail.html) ---
**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:** [June 3, 2009, 12:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/198 "2009-06-03T00:57:43Z")
> [@rolandgunslinger](#): > > I don’t know where I stand on the abortion issue honestly. Sure, I’d like there to be less abortions performed. But what business is it of mine what a woman does with her own body? > > The only question I have is this…If a pregnant woman is murdered, why is the murderer charged with two murders as opposed to just the murder of the woman? The fetus isn’t a human yet? I’m not in favor of those laws, but I think they can make sense if abortion is allowed for the reasons I think it should be allowed. As a thought experiment, imagine that we’re in an unlikely scenario where you are directly donating blood to me. If you stop donating the blood, I will die. A gunman bursts into the room and shoots us both. The fact that I was dependent on you doesn’t change the action of the shooter. The fact that you could withdraw the blood support and I would die doesn’t mean someone else gets to kill me. Again, it’s one way to think about it. ---
**Author:** ![nzkeyboard](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/94ad74/32.png) [@nzkeyboard](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nzkeyboard)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 1:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/199 "2009-06-03T01:22:24Z")
Why does everything have to be so black and white with a lot of you guys? Pro life simply means you prefer pregnant women to not have abortions and Pro Choice means you would like the women to be able to choose. different people have varying feelings of different intensities on their own opinions and being neutral means you simply do not care either way. Personally i was really upset that my partner had an abortion but what right do i have to make judgements and interfer with other peoples lifes and situations that i know nothing about? how can one rule fit anyone? am i pro choice or pro life? who knows. can we really fit a definitive label on people based on the strength or intensity of their feelings on their opinions? i.e (he doesnt feel strongly enough about being a christian so he mustnt be one) everything is relative! ---
**Author:** ![Early\_Out](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/6f9a4e/32.png) [@Early\_Out](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Early_Out)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2009, 1:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/200 "2009-06-03T01:33:40Z")
> [@Flyhalf](#): > > So you care just a little bit then, but not enough to allow the woman to abort a pregnancy caused by rape? Is that it? And who said anything about toddlers? Oh, let him have his strawman. I thought it best just to ignore that little bit of nonsense. “An analogy,” my ass - it’s not the same thing, and he knows it. A rape victim trying to rid herself of an unwanted pregnancy wouldn’t be waiting long to take care of it. I think it’s safe to say this would always occur in the first trimester (and probably within the first month). There’s no “little human” involved, just a growing clump of cells. I may be assuming too much, here, but I believe we’re seeing yet another case in which males have this, “there, there, honey, we’re sorry you got raped, but you won’t mind carrying the rapist’s baby too much, now will you?” attitude. That, coupled with the heavy male representation among the “scream at the women, shoot the doctors” crowd leads me to believe that it’s not a deep concern for human life that motivates these folks. It’s a control issue. “Women exist to carry my spawn, and their needs come second, if they count at all.” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391.md?page=9) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391.md?page=11)