# 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:** 15\ **Page:** 15
**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 4, 2009, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/281 "2009-06-04T20:45:44Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Seems to me you are making the same error I see the “pro-lifers” making: taking some axiom as absolute. In this case, that damage = prevent it no matter how it came about. That isn’t the case in any system of law or ethics I know of - intentions and actions generally matter; the weighing of consequences and goals isn’t “splitting hairs”, but the very stuff of moral decision-making. > > What is “punishable” isn’t having a damaged kid (isn’t that the “slippery slope” you were warning _against_?) but deliberatiely doing something which will result in a damaged kid: and the identity of that “something” is key. > > In the first case, it is simply the act of wanting to give birth at all. > > In the second, it is in drinking when pregnant. > > The nanny state preventing either is impinging on liberty, so then one should ask, is impinging on liberty in either case _reasonable_? > > The answer, I would suggest, is different in the two cases. Well, as a nearly irrelevent detail, the punishment would almost certainly only be applied in cases where you actually had a damaged kid - if you dodge the bullet (either the genetic or alcoholic one), you almost certainly wouldn’t see trial regardless of your choices. And you are misstating the cases; it isn’t _wanting_ to give birth that would be be punishable choice, any more than _wanting_ to drink would be. The problematic act would be the _actual_ act of choosing to bear and bring to term a child that you knew had a high risk of being damaged. (You of course shouldn’t be prosecuted if you had no idea.) Making this punishable is akin to making a person liable for deliberately using shoddy materials in contructing a building that leads to its collapse - which I believe we do indeed hold people liable for. Speaking frankly, when I see somebody phrasing things in an unequal and slanted manner like that, it suggests to me that I’m not the only one who thinks the argument isn’t so good when stated in an unslanted manner. And you are utterly correct in stating that at the case level it comes down to whether the impingment is deemed reasonable. And for this I think the ‘driving while blind’ analogy is a good parallel. It is an extreme liability on a person to disallow them from driving, yes? Yet we are willing to do so if the resulting problem is meriting of prevention. This is not to say that all judicial systems would decide that way in the ‘no damaged babies’ case - some might consider driving, or bearing disabled children, too great a right to remove. So be it. But the argument for banning the genetically damaged babies is _exactly_ the same as the argument for banning the alcohol-damaged babies, and it is incorrect to say otherwise - the \*only \*difference between the two cases is the severity of the imposition. The logic justifying the imposition is identical. And I’ll add, just as a blind person may take a bus, a woman incapable of bearing undamanged children may adopt. Such details might, in theory, be taken into account when drawing up the laws. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/282 "2009-06-04T21:11:10Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Well, as a nearly irrelevent detail, the punishment would almost certainly only be applied in cases where you actually had a damaged kid - if you dodge the bullet (either the genetic or alcoholic one), you almost certainly wouldn’t see trial regardless of your choices. > > And you are misstating the cases; it isn’t _wanting_ to give birth that would be be punishable choice, any more than _wanting_ to drink would be. The problematic act would be the _actual_ act of choosing to bear and bring to term a child that you knew had a high risk of being damaged. (You of course shouldn’t be prosecuted if you had no idea.) Making this punishable is akin to making a person liable for deliberately using shoddy materials in contructing a building that leads to its collapse - which I believe we do indeed hold people liable for. > > Speaking frankly, when I see somebody phrasing things in an unequal and slanted manner like that, it suggests to me that I’m not the only one who thinks the argument isn’t so good when stated in an unslanted manner. > And you are utterly correct in stating that at the case level it comes down to whether the impingment is deemed reasonable. And for this I think the ‘driving while blind’ analogy is a good parallel. It is an extreme liability on a person to disallow them from driving, yes? Yet we are willing to do so if the resulting problem is meriting of prevention. > > This is not to say that all judicial systems would decide that way in the ‘no damaged babies’ case - some might consider driving, or bearing disabled children, too great a right to remove. So be it. But the argument for banning the genetically damaged babies is _exactly_ the same as the argument for banning the alcohol-damaged babies, and it is incorrect to say otherwise - the \*only \*difference between the two cases is the severity of the imposition. The logic justifying the imposition is identical. > > And I’ll add, just as a blind person may take a bus, a woman incapable of bearing undamanged children may adopt. Such details might, in theory, be taken into account when drawing up the laws. Well, good luck with prosecuting the parents of Downs children, I guess. I totally disagree with you, for resaons already outlined. I would state that the right to have one’s own children is a major right, one that is somewhat more intrusive to remove than the right to drink for a few months or even the right to drive. It may be that you could make a case that someone’s genetics are so messed up that the right should be legally removed, but the history of previous “well meaning” attempts at eugenics suggests that such interventions do more harm than good and are not generally supportable. I would say that preventing people from getting hammered while knowingly pregnant isn’t the same thing as a eugenics program at all, that the difference is pretty commonsensical, and I’m sort of puzzled by the vehemence of your insistence otherwise. But I’ve kinda said my piece on this. ---
**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 4, 2009, 9:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/283 "2009-06-04T21:36:35Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Well, good luck with prosecuting the parents of Downs children, I guess. Similar good luck prosecuting the parents of fetal alcohol syndrome children. > [@Malthus](#): > > I totally disagree with you, for resaons already outlined. I would state that the right to have one’s own children is a major right, one that is somewhat more intrusive to remove than the right to drink for a few months or even the right to drive. It may be that you could make a case that someone’s genetics are so messed up that the right should be legally removed, but the history of previous “well meaning” attempts at eugenics suggests that such interventions do more harm than good and are not generally supportable. > > I would say that preventing people from getting hammered while knowingly pregnant isn’t the same thing as a eugenics program at all, that the difference is pretty commonsensical, and I’m sort of puzzled by the vehemence of your insistence otherwise. > > But I’ve kinda said my piece on this. My ‘vehemence’ (you mean, my failure to concede?) is simply that the arguments are exactly the same in form, and if one may be applied in law, then it opens the door for the other to be. Keeping in mind that this prosecution would likely be happening after the fact, in both cases the court is presented with a handicapped baby, and must decide whether to punish the parent(s). That you think trying to weed out the inheritable predisposition towards alcohol isn’t eugenics is largely irrelevent to whether the arguments are similar in form - they’re _identical_. Perhaps another reason I’m not impressed with your proposal is because you are asking for punishment based on something so amorphous, without being clear what you’re asking. Unless you intend to enforce complete prohibition from drinking on pregnant women (which is _so_ likely to work), you must be asking for them to make a judgement call as to how much is “too much”, for something they’re doing over a total of nine months, notably _without_ the ability to tell when they’re seriously harming or have seriously harmed the fetus. It’s just icing on the cake that you’re asking them to make this careful judgement when they’ve already tossed a few beers down. Notably, there are stark parallels to drunk driving (which I considered using in my analogy rather than blindfoldedness, but there’s no permanent parallel to beer goggles); it doesn’t make _all_ drinking before driving illegal; just drinking that puts you above a specific BA limit. And we’ll note that (as mentioned in another thread around here) for this to have _any_ effect at all on the frequency of drunk driving the punishments have been made positively _draconian_. Imposition at its finest. And of course, it takes a lot more drinking to damage your kid than your evening’s driving ability, so you’e either going to set absurdly low limits, or seriously be asking people to make this careful judgement with two sheets to the wind. It’s madness, madness I tell you! Regardless, this is definitely a hijack. But suffice to say, the arguments for punishing FAS and “down’s” (or _whatever_ the actual diseases are) really are identical, and I think that if the ‘eugenics’ proposal is politically unviable, the ‘partial prohibition’ proposal is literally impossible to implement in a sane and effective manner. ---
**Author:** ![Malthus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/85f322/32.png) [@Malthus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Malthus)\ **Post date:** [June 4, 2009, 9:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/284 "2009-06-04T21:52:10Z")
> [@begbert2](#): > > Similar good luck prosecuting the parents of fetal alcohol syndrome children. > > My ‘vehemence’ (you mean, my failure to concede?) is simply that the arguments are exactly the same in form, and if one may be applied in law, then it opens the door for the other to be. Keeping in mind that this prosecution would likely be happening after the fact, in both cases the court is presented with a handicapped baby, and must decide whether to punish the parent(s). That you think trying to weed out the inheritable predisposition towards alcohol isn’t eugenics is largely irrelevent to whether the arguments are similar in form - they’re _identical_. > > Perhaps another reason I’m not impressed with your proposal is because you are asking for punishment based on something so amorphous, without being clear what you’re asking. Unless you intend to enforce complete prohibition from drinking on pregnant women (which is _so_ likely to work), you must be asking for them to make a judgement call as to how much is “too much”, for something they’re doing over a total of nine months, notably _without_ the ability to tell when they’re seriously harming or have seriously harmed the fetus. It’s just icing on the cake that you’re asking them to make this careful judgement when they’ve already tossed a few beers down. > > Notably, there are stark parallels to drunk driving (which I considered using in my analogy rather than blindfoldedness, but there’s no permanent parallel to beer goggles); it doesn’t make _all_ drinking before driving illegal; just drinking that puts you above a specific BA limit. And we’ll note that (as mentioned in another thread around here) for this to have _any_ effect at all on the frequency of drunk driving the punishments have been made positively _draconian_. Imposition at its finest. And of course, it takes a lot more drinking to damage your kid than your evening’s driving ability, so you’e either going to set absurdly low limits, or seriously be asking people to make this careful judgement with two sheets to the wind. It’s madness, madness I tell you! > > Regardless, this is definitely a hijack. But suffice to say, the arguments for punishing FAS and “down’s” (or _whatever_ the actual diseases are) really are identical, and I think that if the ‘eugenics’ proposal is politically unviable, the ‘partial prohibition’ proposal is literally impossible to implement in a sane and effective manner. Woah. You think it is literally impossible and unreasonable to ask people who are willingly and knowingly pregnant to refrain from heavy drinking, and that any attempt to do so will inextorably lead to eugenics by operation of the same logic? That’s not just any ol’ slippery slope, but the Mt. Everest of slippery slopes. :eek: ---
**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 4, 2009, 10:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/285 "2009-06-04T22:05:39Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > Woah. You think it is literally impossible and unreasonable to ask people who are willingly and knowingly pregnant to refrain from heavy drinking, and that any attempt to do so will inextorably lead to eugenics by operation of the same logic? > > That’s not just any ol’ slippery slope, but the Mt. Everest of slippery slopes. :eek: You can ask, but you’re not talking about asking. You’re talking about enforcing by punitive law. Not _quite_ the same thing - the former is possible but not perfectly effective (and we currently do it); the latter is impossible to do in a sane and effective manner (and we shouldn’t try to do it). And yeah, you can reach differing conclusions using the same argument form on similar but not identical situations. Funny that. (Did I ever say this _wasn’t_ a slippery slope argument? Though for bigness I favor the “gay marriage -\> people marrying sheep -\> cats and dogs sleeping together -\> mass hysteria” one.) ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 3:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/286 "2009-06-05T03:02:47Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > _Um_, how is it not? > > (Starting sentences with “Um” sounds incredibly dismissive. It would be easier if you just said, “Hey, I don’t feel like talking to you.”) Honest I didn’t mean to sound dismissive. If I didn’t want to talk to you I wouldn’t have responded. I was just confused because although I sorta understand your point it doesn’t really change the definition of innocent does it? Here’s how it’s not. IMHO Infringing on someone’s rights seems to require some sort of willful act even if it’s done out of ignorance. A tree isn’t infringing on my right to see the horizon by growing in the way. The train is not committing an act but merely obeying the laws of physics so while it can kill you, it is not infringing on anything. A fetus is merely following biological basics with no conscious act. It is not infringing anymore than the sun infringes on my right to prefer the darkness. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 3:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/287 "2009-06-05T03:31:04Z")
> [@Malthus](#): > > I thought that most “pro life” people _do_ want legal consequences for those performing or obtaining abortions, only not the exact same ones as suitable to deliberate premeditated murder. I honestly don’t know what most pro life people want. IMO from a logic point of view abortion must be some form of homicide to them even if it falls short of premeditated murder. In some sense a decision to “kill a baby” using their terms, seems like premeditated murder. They decide to do it, plan to do it, and then do it. It’s clearly premeditated. What some pro-life advocates are saying here is that the lack of clear intent , caused by a sincere belief that fetus is not a person, means it’s not murder. Okay, that seems reasonable. It must at least be some form of homicide to be logical IMO. Doing something “illegal” generally has legal consequences. > [@](#): > > The existence of limited exceptions isn’t determinative - after all, all sorts of laws based on general policy considerations have limited exceptions based on different policy considerations. ?? Huh? Please explain. > [@](#): > > In short, I do not accept the conclusion that “pro lifers” doing what every wanna be lawmaker throughout history has done - i.e. attempt to craft a law to take into account sometimes competing concerns of morality and policy - are thereby exposing themselves as hypocites. Even though, as outlined in detail above, I cannot agree with the merit of their moral position, based as it is on axioms I do not accept as valid. Comparing them to lawmakers doesn’t really show them to not be hypocrites. I think there is a disconnect lag between the rhetoric and the reality. They have essentially accepted that a first trimester pregnancy is not really a _person_ as we understand the term. I seriously doubt there’s any going back from that. ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 3:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/288 "2009-06-05T03:40:53Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > But every time a person ends up dead it doesn’t mean a crime was committed by someone somewhere. > > If I see a pedestrian walking down the street, and I aim for him and run him over that’s one crime. > > If I’m driving down the street not paying attention to what I’m doing and run over the same pedestrian that’s another crime. > > If I’m driving down the street and the pedestrian jumps into traffic and I run him over then I haven’t committed a crime at all. > > Same outcome in all three case–dead human being. Different legal and moral culpability for the driver who killed the human being. Let’s try to stay relevant. Does the point you’re trying to make relate to the thread topic at all? Are we talking about a fetus jumping out in front of a car? I’ll concede a miscarriage is not a crime. It’s also not an abortion. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/289 "2009-06-05T10:13:24Z")
Really, cosmosdan? Then what do you call induced miscarriage? And how do you tell the difference? ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 10:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/290 "2009-06-05T10:58:56Z")
> [@E-Sabbath](#): > > Really, cosmosdan? Then what do you call induced miscarriage? > And how do you tell the difference? I think my language may be confusing because I’m trying to be brief. When I speak from the pro-life point of view I’m trying to explain the line of logic spoken of by the OP. I don’t actually hold that position. So, I don’t quite follow your question. Are you just talking definitions? I meant the difference between actively consciously seeking to terminate a pregnancy {abortion} and an uncontrolled, often unsought, termination {miscarriage} because those definitions are relevant to the thread and I think to **Lemur866’s** post. ---
**Author:** ![E-Sabbath](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/e19adc/32.png) [@E-Sabbath](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/E-Sabbath)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 1:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/291 "2009-06-05T13:48:09Z")
I just like to bring up that outlawing abortion creates some interesting results if you inflict the punishment on women. And as technology and communications advances, things can be controlled in tighter ways than they were in the 60s. Being able to tell the difference between a miscarriage and an induced miscarriage is a non-trivial legal issue, and the second one is an abortion. ---
**Author:** ![Whack-a-Mole](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/whack-a-mole/32/141_2.png) [@Whack-a-Mole](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Whack-a-Mole)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/292 "2009-06-05T16:35:56Z")
I was considering starting a new thread on this but for now will just try here. In trying to follow the logic of all this I am thoroughly confused by Camille Paglia’s stance: > [@](#): > > Let’s take the issue of abortion rights, of which I am a firm supporter. As an atheist and libertarian, I believe that government must stay completely out of the sphere of personal choice. Every individual has an absolute right to control his or her body. > > \ > > But the pro-life position, whether or not it is based on religious orthodoxy, is more ethically highly evolved than my own tenet of unconstrained access to abortion on demand. My argument (as in my first book, “Sexual Personae,”) has always been that nature has a master plan pushing every species toward procreation and that it is our right and even obligation as rational human beings to defy nature’s fascism. Nature herself is a mass murderer, making casual, cruel experiments and condemning 10,000 to die so that one more fit will live and thrive. > > Hence I have always frankly admitted that abortion is murder, the extermination of the powerless by the powerful. Liberals for the most part have shrunk from facing the ethical consequences of their embrace of abortion, which results in the annihilation of concrete individuals and not just clumps of insensate tissue. The state in my view has no authority whatever to intervene in the biological processes of any woman’s body, which nature has implanted there before birth and hence before that woman’s entrance into society and citizenship. > > On the other hand, I support the death penalty for atrocious crimes (such as rape-murder or the murder of children). I have never understood the standard Democratic combo of support for abortion and yet opposition to the death penalty. Surely it is the guilty rather than the innocent who deserve execution? > > SOURCE: [http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index3.html](http://www.salon.com/opinion/paglia/2008/09/10/palin/index3.html) Huh? If I am reading that right she is saying that abortion is murder, an extermination of the less powerful, but that is ok because the State has no rights over a woman’s body? Having a hard time getting my head around this thinking. ---
**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 5, 2009, 5:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/293 "2009-06-05T17:13:59Z")
> [@cosmosdan](#): > > Honest I didn’t mean to sound dismissive. If I didn’t want to talk to you I wouldn’t have responded. I was just confused because although I sorta understand your point it doesn’t really change the definition of innocent does it? To me, “innocent” requires the ability to be guilty. A cloud isn’t innocent. It has no morality. It can’t be an ethical actor, so it can’t be an unethical actor. “Innocent” feels like an attempt to use an emotional term to sway the audience into a horrified reaction to the “innocent’s” demise. ---
**Author:** ![Huerta88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/82dd89/32.png) [@Huerta88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Huerta88)\ **Post date:** [June 5, 2009, 6:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/294 "2009-06-05T18:16:46Z")
> [@Whack-a-Mole](#): > > Having a hard time getting my head around this thinking. Two things: Paglia gets paid to be a provacoteuse, so she’s going to plunk down extreme statements by her nature just to stir the pot. Second, I think if she had written “homicide,” and she probably should have, you’d be less troubled. Her analogy to the death penalty works better that way, IMHO. “It’s killing of a person, but it’s justified by countervailing considerations and thus we won’t term it illicit murder.” ---
**Author:** ![cosmosdan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/a6a055/32.png) [@cosmosdan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cosmosdan)\ **Post date:** [June 6, 2009, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391/295 "2009-06-06T04:25:31Z")
> [@jsgoddess](#): > > To me, “innocent” requires the ability to be guilty. A cloud isn’t innocent. It has no morality. It can’t be an ethical actor, so it can’t be an unethical actor. “Innocent” feels like an attempt to use an emotional term to sway the audience into a horrified reaction to the “innocent’s” demise. Ahhhhh I understand. I don’t fully agree but it’s a valid point. I mean , I agree that innocent is used as an emotional term but I disagree that it’s used incorrectly. For me the determining factor would be what innocent is used to describe. An innocent cluster of cells with no consciousness isn’t all that relevant when considering human rights. I think they have the person and/or baby part of their equation wrong rather than the innocent part. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/pro-lifers-cannot-think-a-fetus-is-a-person/498391.md?page=14)